Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said he’s “unfazed” by Democrats who have been roasting him for considering a preside𒀰ntial run as an inde🎉pendent because they claim he would split the vote and end up re-el🔯ecting President Trump.
“I’m putting myself in a position that I know is going to create hate, anger, disenfranchisement from friends, from Democrats,” Schultz on Monday, the morning after he appeared on “60 Minutes” to discuss his presidential bid.
In the interview with CBS, Schultz said Ameri🍨cans are fed up with Democrats and Republicans because of their inability to make government work.
“I’m concerned about one thing: Doing everything I can to help families who have been left behind, and to restore dignity and honor back in the Oval Office,” he told Axios.
“I’m not considering this to win the Twitter primary,” he continued. “I believe that lifelong Democrats and lifelong Republicans are looking for a home, and they’re not spending hours and hours on Twitter.”
Howard Wolfson, an adviser to Michael Bloomberg, said a campaign by Schultz would hand Trump a re🐻-election victory.
“I have seen enough data over many years to know that anyone running for POTUS as an independent will split the anti-incumbent, anti-Trump vote,” . “The stakes couldn’t be higher. We can not afford the risk of spoiler politics that result in Trump’s re-election.”
Kevin Kruse, who teaches histജory at Princeton University, also warned of the consequences of an independent run.
“I’m an American political historian and I can assure you that the only thing you’ll accomplish by running for president as a centrist independent is helping re-elect Donald Trump,” Kruse wrote on Twitter.
Earlier Sunday, Democratic presidential hopeful Julian Castro, responding to excerpts released ahead of the “60 Minutes” interview, said Schultz’s bid would benefit Trump.
“I have a concern that, if he did run, that, essentially, it would provide Donald Trump🍰 with his best hope of getting reelected𒀰,” Castro, the former Housing and Urban Development Secretary, told CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Schultz in the CBS interview disputed that he’d play the role of a spoiler.
“I want to see the American people win. I want to see America win. I don’t care if you’re a Democrat, independent, Libertarian, Republican. Bring me your ideas. And I will be an independent person, who will embrace those ideas. Because I am not, in any way, in bed with a party,” he said.