Former Obama aide Bill Burton has been brought on board by former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz as a communications adviser, and he appeared on MSNBC today to defend Schultz’s potential independent presidential bid.

Chuck Todd, who opened today’s MTP Daily covering the Democratic backlash to his potential candidacy, brought up an op-ed Burton wrote in 2016 in which he argued that Jill Stein or Gary Johnson eating into Hillary Clinton‘s support would matter significantly in that race.

“I suppose Stein supporters,” Burton wrote at the time, “would not want to be in the position of explaining to their kids how they helped make Trump president.”

Todd asked, “Why should you not eat those words today?”

Burton said right at the outset “Howard Schultz is not Jill Stein”:

“Jill Stein was in that race because she thought the two parties were too close together, the two candidates were too close together. What Howard Schultz thinks is that the polar opposites of the parties are so far apart, but the American people are close together. And maybe what we need is a choice for the American people to choose something different, a different path, a different kind of outcome, a different kind of politics in America.”

Burton added that while Schultz hasn’t decided to run yet, “if he did, I think we can agree that it would be a more serious effort than what Jill Stein put together.”

You can watch above, via MSNBC.

[image via screengrab]

from Mediaite http://bit.ly/2DGlZXK