Having drawn fire from Democrats worried his plans to run as an independent will split the vote in 2020, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz talked about his differences with Democratic and GOP leadership in an interview with Yahoo Finance’s Julia La Roche on The Final Round.

A lifelong Democrat, Schultz said he chose to run “outside the 2-party system” because of how far left the Democratic party has gone.

"On a policy level what they’re proposing and what they’re talking about is the antithesis of what we need in terms of our democracy our free enterprise system,” Schultz said. “And so much of it is a line to a level of socialism that I think is so inconsistent with the promise of the country and the opportunity we need to create for the American people."

He said while some popular vilification of capitalism is justified, that socialism is too extreme a response. “Government can’t solve all of our problems,” he said.

Schultz has focused on taking business approaches to improving the American economy, but took issue with President Donald Trump’s unprecedented focus on the stock market. While Schultz himself has been criticized as out of touch with the average American due to his billionaire status, he said the stock market is a metric that doesn’t include many Americans.

"[President Trump] has used the stock market as a proxy for the economy, which I think is inconsistent with the truth," Schultz said. "The truth is that 40% of American families don’t have $400 in case of an emergency, and so many Americans don’t participate in the stock market."

Read more:

• Howard Schultz: I am seriously considering running for president as a centrist independent

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• Why Howard Schultz's presidential campaign is already stumbling

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