Howard Schultz wants to have bipartisan meetings over 'coffee — Starbucks coffee'

Welcome to the businessman presidency, take two.

OK, so former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz hasn't officially announced a 2020 run or convinced anyone that he could win as a third-party "centrist independent." But he did sound downright presidential in a speech to Miami Dade College on Wednesday, especially as he made some potentially sponsored comments about bitter partisanship.

At the Florida college, the person of means lauded historic bipartisanship shown under former President Ronald Reagan and former Democratic House Speaker Tip O'Neill. Today's government looks nothing like that, Schultz continued, but he said he'll fix it all by having "members of both parties to the White House for coffee — Starbucks coffee — as often as I can."

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

If a White House mention wasn't enough, Schultz made other presidential promises in the speech, saying he "would not nominate a Supreme Court justice" who couldn't be confirmed by "two-thirds" of the Senate, per ABC News. That majority hasn't been achieved since Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's nomination in 2009. Schultz then went on to fight "centrist independent" haters, saying he "refuse[s] to be deterred" from his fight to save America from a "crisis of division."