Why Mark Cuban Endorsed Donald Trump
Earlier this year Mark Cuban surprised the world by publicly endorsing Donald Trump. Surprising because over the years the billionaires have been competitors and rivals. Following in Trump’s footsteps, Cuban wrote a business book and launched a reality television show and in each case the success Trump found eluded Cuban— Donald Trump couldn’t resist ribbing Cuban for copying him and with each failure he couldn’t resist gloating — not Trump’s finest hour. Despite their history, Mark Cuban jumped on the Trump bandwagon early and with fervor. I always assumed Mark was a Democrat despite his claims to the contrary such as, “I would prefer to be a Republican, I want smaller government. I want smarter government. Just like most Republicans.”
Mark Cuban jumped in the 2016 election with vigor when he suggested that he would be willing to serve as Donald Trump’s vice president. When asked why he was so supportive of Trump Cuban explained,
“I don’t care what his actual positions are. I don’t care if he says the wrong thing. He says what’s on his mind. He gives honest answers rather than prepared answers. This is more important than anything any candidate has done in years.”
The reality is that most Americans feel the same way. It is rare that we agree with our candidates on everything — but with someone like Trump at least you know where he stands — that isn’t the case for Hillary Clinton — the polls drive her belief systems.
Of course whenever you’re dealing with someone who speaks their mind sometimes the things they say are inelegant. Americans aren’t used to their politicians being unscripted and when Donald Trump came onto the scene it was refreshing to hear someone say the things we only say around our friends. After endorsing Donald Trump, Mark Cuban found himself not only having to defend Donald Trump, but also himself. For example on the charge that Trump is a racist he said,
“In my experience with Donald Trump, my one-on-one experience, I don’t think he’s racist. Yes, I mean, if I thought he was truly racist and this is exactly what we were going to see from him as the president, then, yes, I preclude him immediately. I don’t think he’s racist.”
When asked if he thought Trump’s criticisms of Hillary Clinton were sexist he told Neil Cavuto,
“People talk about Donald being sexist. There’s nothing he’s said about a woman that he hasn’t said to me. You know, he’s called me ‘ugly,’ he’s called me ‘short off the tee,’ he’s called me all these ridiculous things. That’s just how he combats it.”
One of Mark’s most insightful reasons for supporting Trump over Clinton happened in an interview with CNN where he explained,
“If you look at the obstructionism they’ve offered to Obama, it will be 1,000 times worse for Hillary Clinton. And so you know, the argument, if I had to make an argument for Donald Trump, the argument is I think right now, he would do a better job of crossing the aisle and reducing gridlock than Senator Clinton would. And I think that’s a reflection of the fact that Senator Clinton has done a horrible job of communicating and humanizing herself. I mean, it’s horrible to say for a presidential candidate we’re talking about humanizing, right, but they made her not human. They demonized her so bad with Hillary and all this name-calling that she has got, if she has any hope of accomplishing anything, if she wins, she is going to have to get out there and really connect.”
Mark Cuban was most excited about the idea that Donald Trump had changed the game,
“Up until Trump announced his candidacy the conventional wisdom was that you had to be a professional politician in order to run, You had to have a background that was politically scrubbed. In other words, smart people who didn’t live perfect lives could never run. Smart people who didn’t want their families put under the media spotlight wouldn’t run. The Donald is changing all of that. He has changed the game and for that he deserves a lot of credit. Now maybe we will accept candidates warts and all and look at what they can do rather than what headlines they create. Congrats Donald.”
This final point, that Donald Trump had opened the door for candidates who are judged by their abilities and not their warts is what I believe caused Cuban to switch sides. Anyone who knows Mark Cuban knows he wants to be president and once Donald Trump had proven a political neophyte could win a major party nomination he realized his mistake. There was no upside in backing Trump only downsides.
Backing Trump meant that if he won the presidency and turned out to be an utter failure Cuban would be tainted. If he won and did well Trump would run for a second term Cuban would have to wait four more years. By switching sides Cuban could attempt to stop Trump and regardless of the outcome he’d be positioned well to seek the Democratic nomination four years from now. Cuban may be a lot of things but he’s not stupid. Cuban doesn’t hate Trump nor does he think he’s a racist, sexist, or a bigot — he sees Trump as an adversary standing between him and the White House.
