New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has helped breathe new life into John Schnatter’s hope to return the pizza company he founded, Papa John’s International, to greatness.
It came last Tuesday when the governor, on live radio, used racially charged words that minorities, including blacks and Italian Americans, face every day but shouldn’t.
“They used an expression that southern Italians were called, I believe they were saying southern Italians, Sicilians — I’m half-Sicilian — were called, quote-unquote and pardon my language, but I’m just quoting the [New York] Times: ‘n—– wops.’ N-word wops, as a derogatory comment,” Cuomo said.
But while he received some criticism, Cuomo walked away in part because people understood the perspective of his words, even if they didn’t like him mouthing the N-word.
Ditto for his brother, Chris, the CNN host, who said that being called “Fredo” — the loser brother in The Godfather movie — was comparable to the “N-word.”
To Schnatter, that’s similar to what he did last year during a private, and secretly recorded, diversity conference call. In July 2018, it was reported that he cited Colonel Harlan Sanders, founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, when he said, “Colonel Sanders called blacks, n—–s.”
Schnatter described it as a productive, 52-minute call during in which he cited the word he felt “abhorrent” to him, which, like Cuomo, he used to make his point. “I paraphrased another founder to make a point about not saying the word,” he said.
But he was forced out.
Now, he sees the example of Cuomo as his chance to finally get past the issue and help fix the ailing pizza chain.
In an interview, Schnatter said that he had been subjected to a double standard, partly due to his outspoken comments on the NFL’s early failure to reach an agreeable resolution with the players in response to their on-field protests sparked by former quarterback Colin Kaepernick.
Referring to Cuomo, he said, “I was a little taken aback that what a governor is doing is so much more egregious than what I did, and he gets a complete hall pass. He’s the governor. He did it on a live broadcast on radio. I’m in a private meeting, secretly taped, and I paraphrased the word with disdain,” he said.
“I think it’s insightful, and I think that it exemplifies what is really going on,” said Schnatter, who still wears his signature red or black shirt and who during stops in Leesburg, Virginia, this week, was mobbed by fans, black and white, for selfies.
Schnatter, who still owns about 15% of Papa John’s, said politics was at play in his ouster. While he believes corporate enemies and the NFL manipulated what he said to push him out, he also said that liberal media elites were eager to punish him and used racial politics to draw blood.
“I think the Left is intimidated with the relationship I have with the American people: Working men and women who wake up every day and make this country great. I think it eats the liberal elite alive,” said Papa John, who said he supports President Trump’s economic improvement efforts.
The University of Virginia’s Larry Sabato added that unlike politicians who usually have time before facing voters, corporate executives have to deal with sinking profits, bad PR, and stockholders ever day.
“Elected officials only face the voters every so often, and they usually have time to recover if they tough it out. Pols are surrounded by hardened crisis managers, too. They all know that polls go up and down. Would [Virginia Gov. Ralph] Northam have survived a vote held shortly after his blackface scandal? Doubtful. But he has a guaranteed four-year term — nonrenewable anyway,” said Sabato, director of the university’s Center for Politics.
“With businessmen, it’s different. They simply aren’t used to intense media and public scrutiny of their lives, and they often seem like deer frozen in the headlights when they get caught in a scandal. Even more important, the public ‘votes’ every day by deciding whether they’ll buy the products sold by the businessman’s company. A sales downturn because of controversy rings alarm bells immediately, and a board of directors can decide the easiest thing to do is to wave goodbye to the CEO,” he added.
Schnatter still visits Papa John’s franchises and expects corporate headquarters to get the company back on track to boost revenues.
“I’ve never stopped fighting, and have even offered my assistance to the current company management,” he said. “The biggest reason is the people I care most about, the franchisees and the employees, are getting hurt very badly and I want that fixed. The second reason is that I am the only one that can help fix it. There is no doubt about that. The only one to fix Papa John’s is Papa John.”
