Howard Schultz 2020 Centrist Independent

60 Minutes/YouTube

Howard Schultz milquetoast 2020 announcement gets savaged

The backlash to his potential 2020 run was swift.

 

Andrew Wyrich

Tech

Posted on Jan 28, 2019   Updated on May 20, 2021, 8:32 pm CDT

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz drew ire from thousands of people on Twitter on Sunday night when he announced that he was “seriously considering” a presidential run.

Schultz, in his second ever tweet, said he was considering running as a “centrist independent,” causing an avalanche of people on Twitter to criticize his presidential aspirations.

He echoed the idea during an interview with 60 Minutes.

As of Monday morning, the former Starbucks leader’s tweet was thoroughly ratioed, getting 31,000 replies compared to just 2,600 retweets and 14,000 likes.

“I love our country, and I am seriously considering running for president as a centrist independent,” he wrote.

Many people online suggested that Schultz’s campaign would benefit President Donald Trump in the 2020 election.

One of the detractors for a potential Schultz campaign was 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro, who told CNN on Sunday that he believed the billionaire’s presidential run would be Trump’s “best hope of getting re-elected.”

Even Trump weighed in on Schultz’s potential run, making a joke about Starbucks paying rent in Trump Tower.

“Howard Schultz doesn’t have the ‘guts’ to run for President! Watched him on @60Minutes last night and I agree with him that he is not the “smartest person.” Besides, America already has that! I only hope that Starbucks is still paying me their rent in Trump Tower!” the president wrote on Monday morning.

Of course, not everyone was against the idea.

Two officials for Unite America, a group that focuses on “electing independent candidates,” called the outpouring of negativity directed at Schultz and the”attempts to suppress” him for his independence “at best anti-democratic and at worst a new kind of political bigotry” in an op-ed published by the Washington Post.

And one person declared they would never vote for Schultz in one amazing thread.

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*First Published: Jan 28, 2019, 9:01 am CST