Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers pillory Howard Schultz's presidential run rollout, differently


Jimmy Fallon added a new impersonation to his impressive collection on Thursday's Tonight Show, cutting a 2020 presidential rollout video as former Starbucks chairman and CEO Howard Schultz. Yes, there are Starbucks jokes. "Over the past few months, I've traveled all across this great nation, speaking to everyday Americans and hearing what they had to say," Fallon's Schultz said. "Mostly they say things like, 'Please, for the love of God, don't run for president! Why on Earth would you do this?' But just like a true Starbucks barista, I didn't hear the words properly. To me, it sounded like: 'That's a great idea, you should really run for president.'"
Schultz vowed to "pay off our national debt using the $12 trillion I've collected selling Norah Jones CDs," and earnestly laid out a five-point plan, including such crowd-pleasers as "record a longer version of the 'Baby Shark' song." He did show some emotion at the end, though, in a manner any barista would recognize.
Seth Meyers was a little more direct in his critique of Schultz's run on Thursday's Late Night, though he, too, had some Starbucks jokes. Instead of laying out his "centrist independent" policies, "Schultz has been attacking Democrats," he said. "And so far, the rollout has been a disaster." That's partly because "there is virtually no appetite for a billionaire businessman to run for president right now," Meyers said. "I guess somebody really put a stink on that genre. Running like a billionaire now is like saying, 'We should do a music festival with Ja Rule on an island!'"
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"If Schultz doesn't like the current Democratic field, he could just run against them in a Democratic primary," he argued. "But he wants to bypass the process because he thinks he's entitled to it. That's right, the guy who ran Starbucks doesn't want to wait in line." Watch below. Peter Weber
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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