Howard Schultz rips Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal as 'fantasy', Trump ObamaCare purge
Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who is also mulling a 2020 presidential run as an independent, ripped Democrats and Republicans for floating ideas that are not possible during an exclusive interview on FOX Business.
“The president came out and said he wants to eradicate the Affordable Care Act, where is the solution?” he told Maria Bartiromo. “On the Democrat side, the Green New Deal is fantasy. There are well intentioned people that are trying to do good things, but let’s not throw things against the wall that they themselves know are not going to stick.”
Schultz said the “far left and far right” are at extremes and not working together for the good of the American people.
“The Affordable Care Act provided 20 million Americans with insurance, we should go back and fix it, not eradicate it,” he said. “And in regards to the Green New Deal, Medicare for all is not the answer.”
The Green New Deal, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal to address climate change, will get its first vote on Capitol Hill today. The Senate is scheduled to take up a procedural motion on the plan, led by majority leader Mitch McConnell, who wants to get Democrats on the record, including several of whom are running for president in 2020.
The resolution could end up costing Americans close to $93 trillion or about $600,000 per household, over the course of the next decade, according to a study released by the American Action Forum. But in Schultz’s opinion, the plan is out of reach. He also said socialism would destroy Democracy and free enterprise.
“Capitalism has created more jobs, lifted more people out of poverty,” he said. And when I talk about the Green New Deal, I agree with you [Maria] and I agree with your viewers -- the Green New Deal is not the answer. We can’t afford the $30, $40, $50 trillion dollars of fantasy with regard to piling that kind of money on top of a $22 trillion debt.”
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Although Schultz did not say whether he was throwing his name in the ring for 2020, he found after traveling the country, a “vast majority of Americans are in the middle” and the “silent majority” would “probably” reelect Trump if he were up against a socialist Democrat.