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Seattle mayor reverses course following anti-Starbucks remarks on picket line

May 21, 2026 | | Print Article

After trash-talking Starbucks, Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, a rabid leftist, is now backtracking quicker than Seattle rain changing directions.

The drama started after Wilson won the election in November. Only hours after her opponent conceded defeat, she joined striking Starbucks employees on the picket line and called for people to boycott the company.

“That is why I am proud to join them on their picket line and proud to say loud and clear, I am not buying Starbucks and you should not either,” she said from the picket line.

Listen:

She doubled down while speaking at a Seattle University forum last month.

“I think the claims that millionaires are going to leave our state are super overblown,” she said in response to concerns about her rabid leftist policies driving businesses away. “And the ones that leave? Like, bye.”

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Listen:

But unfortunately for her, the chickens have come home to roost, because five days after her remarks, Starbucks announced that it would be expanding into another city, Nashville, in a Republican-led state.

Furthermore, according to an article in the Seattle Times, the most likely reason for the choice of Nashville was taxes, taxes, taxes.

“Tennessee boasts the nation’s eighth-best tax climate for business, according to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation’s 2025 survey, which considers taxes on income, businesses, sales, and property, and unemployment insurance rates,” according to the article.

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Compare that to Washington State, which ranks in 45th place.

Starbucks has also announced plans to lay off hundreds of employees at its Seattle headquarters.

“More than 250 Starbucks corporate employees will be laid off starting July 17,” MyNorthWest reported. “The cuts affect only corporate roles, not baristas or store staff. Included in the layoffs are several vice presidents, directors, and senior managers.”

It’s obvious, meanwhile, that Wilson is seriously starting to feel the heat for her previous comments.

“Those comments were not productive in the sense that they caused more harm than good,” she admitted in a New York Times interview published over the weekend.

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According to the Times, she also “said she understands now that everything she says will be parsed for potential anti-business sound-bites and that she should have ‘a multidimensional relationship’ with companies like Starbucks,” whatever the hell that means.

“I want them here, and I believe they want to be here,” she added about Starbucks.

Her mea culpa has attracted massive mockery:

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However, some warned that just because she’s performed a mea culpa doesn’t mean she’s suddenly changed her values.

“She doesn’t regret her statement, she’s forced to admit she and ALL who voted her into office are moving at hyper speed to progress in EXACTLY THE WRONG DIRECTION,” one critic wrote. “That’s Progressivism- death to a society. It’s a replay of the Bolshevik Revolution, an ignorant repeat of History.”

“If @MayorofSeattle is saying it was a ‘mistake’ to blow off Starbucks, it’s not because she’s had a change of heart about corporations, it’s because this blunder bit her in the rear. She will continue to erode the tax base; she’s that dumb,” another critic wrote.

Vivek Saxena
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