Tuesday night, CNN is scheduled to provide an enormous platform to former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz in the form of one of the network’s signature town halls. It will be the second CNN town hall of the 2020 presidential cycle, and the first given to a billionaire who has yet to formally say whether he even wants to run for president.

To Zac Petkanas, a former senior aide to Hillary Clinton, the whole thing feels like “déjà vu.”

“We have the media rushing to confer legitimacy onto a billionaire candidate,” Petkanas told HuffPost. “It just shows that certain elements of the media have learned absolutely nothing from their role in elevating a Donald Trump.”

As it stands now, Schultz is remarkably unpopular. Since telling “60 Minutes” last month that he was “seriously” considering running for president “as a centrist independent,” he has been heckled in bookstores, ridiculed online and criticized for weighing a presidential campaign that early polling shows would improve Trump’s re-election odds. According to CNN’s own polling, Schultz ranks last in favorability when compared to 10 potential Democratic candidates. But media outlets around the country can’t get enough ― and have continued to attentively cover his cross-country listening tour, where he is also promoting his new book.