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Our live coverage of tonight’s CNN town hall has concluded. Visit CNN Politics for more.
Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz got a roaring applause following his CNN town town hall in Houston.
The audience surrounded the billionaire who stuck around for roughly 15 minutes speaking with people and taking selfies.
Howard Schultz says he believes there is something deeply wrong with the American health care system.
It is in a “crisis on many levels,” he said on Tuesday night.
He supports Obamacare, but thinks it needs to be “fixed.”
But asked what, specifically, he would do, Schultz again lacked much detail in his answers.
“I think everyone in America, every person, deserves to have the right for affordable care. Every person,” he declared – the first of his “three principles” on the issue.
The second: “There needs to be competition in the system and what I mean that is competition so that the American people can get access to prescription drugs at lower prices,” Schultz said, “because right now the government is not allowed, under a federal law, to negotiate with (pharmaceutical companies).”
The third principle echoed musings familiar from President Donald Trump’s own statements in the past: a potential plan to change the rules governing how and where insurance companies sell their plans.
When Harlow pressed him for details on the way he would solve these problems – “How – the question is how?” – Schultz returned to speaking about prescription drug pricing.
Mostly, though, he again took the opportunity to rail at both parties: Republicans, he said, had offered no alternative to Obamacare. Progressive Democrats who are for pushing “Medicare for all,” Schultz claimed, had not accurately assessed the potential downside.
“That would disrupt the entire system and it would cost 32 trillion dollars,” he said. The price tag is about right, but his argument didn’t take into account the money Americans would, under the plan, save by having expenses like co-pays and deductibles wiped out.
Billionaire Howard Schultz said one of his first actions as president would be to call every world leader and repair the US’ relationships with allies.
Howard Schultz, responding to an audience member who wondered how removing assault-style weapons would benefit the greater good of the country, said he recognized that gun control was “a very sensitive issue,” and aspired to find “some sensible approach to removing the kind of weapons that have no place in common society.”
What he said:
He added:
The billionaire former CEO of Starbucks, who may or may not be preparing to run for president as an independent, told a CNN town hall audience Tuesday night that, when it comes to race, he doesn’t see color – never has.
He added: “We need to do everything we can to restore the humanity of the country and the president has a large role to play in that.”
The line came as he spoke about the April 2018 incident at a Starbucks store in Philadelphia – “a terrible moment for the company” – that led to a massive anti-bias training push for employees nationwide.
Watch the moment:
Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz would not commit to getting out of the presidential race if he knows in late 2020 that his candidacy will help President Donald Trump get elected.
Asked multiple times by CNN’s Poppy Harlow, Schultz, who has not officially entered the 2020 race, dodged the question. He said he would not run if, in the next few months, “math doesn’t tally up” but declined to say if he would do the same later in the race, should he get into the 2020 race.
“First off, the issue of being a spoiler, how can you spoil a system that is already broken,” he said. “It’s just not working.”
He then added:
But pressed on whether he would make the same calculation deep into the presidential run, Schultz said he was not at that point yet.
“At this point right now, I’m asking a different question. And that is, it’s a lot less about me than giving the American people a voice that they don’t have,” he said. “And what better expression of our democracy than giving the American people a better choice, anew choice. There’s nothing in the constitution, not one word, that says anything about parties. So why can’t I raise my voice and say I’m deeply concerned about where we are as a country?”
Watch more below:
How much would Howard Schultz raise tax on the wealth?
Don’t ask Howard Schultz.
Asked on tonight first by a member of the audience – and then by moderator Poppy Harlow, repeatedly – about the rate he believed the richest Americans should pay, Schultz demurred.
“The headline is here,” Schultz insisted, “I should be paying more taxes. And people who make this kind of revenue, and are of means, should pay more taxes.”
Pressed by Harlow for some kind of detail – a hike of 2% or 10% or 20%? – he said: “I don’t what the number is.”
Schultz was clear, though, on what he didn’t like: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s suggested 70% rate on the highest earners, calling it “punitive.”
The problem with any raise to any rates, he added, was that Americans had lost their faith in government and elected leaders to put the new revenue to good use. Which brought Schultz back to an earlier point: the Green New Deal, another program he does not support.
He also criticized President Trump’s corporate tax cuts, which took the rate down to 21%, saying it “never should have happened.”
Watch the moment:
Pressed tonight on whether he would sell off his Starbucks shares if he becomes president, Howard Schultz wouldn’t commit.
Instead, the billionaire former CEO said he would “do nothing whatsoever to have any conflict of interest between my investments overall or my interests in the company that I love because I will put the role and responsibility and the accountability for results first if I run for president and I’m fortunate enough to win.”
Schultz insisted he wasn’t trying to avoid the question.
“I think there’s multiple ways to do this. No, no, I’m not evading the question. There’s multiple ways to do this, set up a blind trust, do lots of things to remove any conflict of interest,” he said.
Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said Tuesday that the Green New Deal, a sweeping climate change and economic overhaul plan proposed by Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, is “not realistic” and “immoral.”
The comment puts Schultz, who is thinking about running for president as an independent in 2020, at odds with a host of Democratic candidates who said they would support the plan despite its sweeping impacts.
Schultz suggested during the CNN town hall that while those proposing the plans were not “disingenuous,” they were rolling out the plan because it sounds good.
“Let’s be sensible about what we are suggesting,” he said. “Let’s not just throw things against the wall because it’s a good slogan or a good press release.”
Schultz also suggested that the plan was unaffordable:
Watch more below:
Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, speaking at CNN’s town hall tonight, promised to release his taxes – if he decides to run for president.
“Well, I’m not yet decided to run for president, but if I decide to run for president, I 100% will release my taxes and be completely transparent,” he said.
Schultz then took a jab at President Trump for failing to follow through on his campaign promise to release his taxes.
“Yeah, but I think President trump, unfortunately, has a habit of not being truthful,” he said.
Schultz then rose his hand and vowed to release his taxes.
Howard Schultz had a question for the audience: Does anyone think that the United States government is doing well for you and your family, or for the country and the American people?
“Raise your hand if you think the government is doing well for you,” he demanded.
No one did.
“That is why I’m here!” Schultz proclaimed. “And I’ve got good news for you. We can fix it! We can fix it! But we can’t fix it under a broken system where the far left and the far right are more engaged every single day and more interested in self-preservation, self-interests, and not representing you.”
A town hall attendee asked Howard Shultz why the former Starbucks CEO is qualified to be president.
Here’s how he responded:
He added that the US has “lost a sense of leadership in both parties” and “lost a sense of understanding about the values and the conscience of the country.”
“The reason I’m here tonight and the reason I’ve stepped up is because I’m concerned about your children, my children, my grandchildren, and the future of the country,” Schultz said. “I know we can do better than this.”
Howard Schultz said he considering running for president because he’s concerned for the American people – though he doesn’t you to compare him to Trump.
He continued: “I think we look at the country today, it’s very fragile, our standing in the world, and what I think what’s missing right now is a deep sense of leadership that the more than people are longing for and deserve, a sense of character, a sense of morality, a level of civility.”
Schultz acknowledged that his business experience “is not qualifications to run for president, but it is what I’ve learned along the way.”
Watch the moment:
The event just started, and you can watch it live in the video player above or on CNN.
Darius Benton, a communications professor at University of Houston Downtown, said he’s attending Howard Schultz’s town hall with an open mind.
“I just like to stay aware,” Benton said, adding that he’s interested in learning about Schultz’s platform. “Is this going to be good or bad?”
Benton is looking for Schultz’s responses on two key issues: education and race relations.
Armed with information about Schultz, Benton said he plans to return to class and tell his students what he learned about the former Starbucks CEO.
Jeremy Butler, CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, was joined tonight at CNN’s town hall by at least 12 other local veterans who were hoping to learn more about Howard Schultz and his position on key issues affecting generations of veterans.
Veterans’ issues, he said, are “often an afterthought.” Butler said they’ll be attending similar events around the country so they can get a better understanding on where the 2020 candidates stand on veterans issues.
The nonpartisan organization is focused on six big issues: veteran suicides, improve services for women veterans, medical use of cannabis, education, reforming government for veterans and support for veterans who suffered injuries for toxic exposures.
Jeremy Newton, a member of the organization’s Houston chapter, said veterans are always looking for “high-quality care” and ways to make the Department of Veterans Affairs more effective.
The pair shot this short video for the organization’s Facebook page moments before entering the town hall event:
CNN Political Director David Chalian, speaking from Houston, said Howard Schultz faces an uphill battle: He is thought of as the person who could throw the 2020 election to President Trump.
Watch Chalian’s analysis here:
A fierce critic of both President Donald Trump and of the left, former coffee mogul Howard Schultz has been trying to carve out a moderate position as he considers a 2020 bid.
Schultz, in remarks at Purdue University recently, ran through a slew of policy areas, generally hitting what he described as the “far left” and “far right” position on each rather than offering his own specific alternatives.
This is where he stands on keys issues affecting Americans:
Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz hasn’t technically announced a presidential bid in 2020, but he’s certainly mulling one.
But the idea of him jumping into an already crowded 2020 field has sparked outrage from Democrats, who worry an independent candidacy could split the anti-Donald Trump vote and pave the way for his re-election.
Schultz dismissed the criticism as a “false narrative” and argued that it would be a “far left progressive Democrat” who would hand Trump a second term.
Last year, Schultz stepped down from his role as Starbucks chairman and CEO.
He said last month he is considering a run as a “centrist independent.”
