aNewDomain — Remember all the bluster last summer around Mark Cuban’s supposed support for Donald Trump’s candidacy for U.S. president? It was misplaced, the Dallas Mavericks owner and billionaire entrepreneur told aNewDomain in an exclusive interview Wednesday evening.
“I never said I would vote for Donald,” he wrote me in an email. The message was in response to my questions on how and why he’s changed his mind about Trump.
“It wasn’t a change of heart or mind. What I noted very early on in June and July (of 2015) was that he would change politics — and that his impact would come not from what he said, but how he said it.”
And this, he said, “turned out to be the case. Now that he has rung up the nomination it’s time for him to show depth on the issues. He doesn’t have to talk about them with his base, but at some point he has to at least show hints of depth in his knowledge. That hasn’t happened.”
Does that mean Cuban won’t vote for Trump and will vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton instead? Well, not quite.
“I don’t know who I will vote for yet, we have six months. But if pressed I would vote for Hillary today because I know her detailed positions. I don’t know details of any of his.” In his comments to aNewDomain, Cuban also reiterated musings he’s made in the last few days to CNBC and other media around whether he himself would be a good choice as Clinton’s running mate.
“As far as being VP, (Clinton) desperately needs someone with a strong personality who is tech savvy and social media savvy and (who) is strong on the business front,” Cuban told aNewDomain today. In other words? “Someone like me. But not necessarily me.
But “if she asked, I would discuss it with her.”
Last Thursday at the SALT conference in Las Vegas, Cuban’s comments on the matter were exceedingly colorful. According to this piece in CNN Money, he told the crowd of hedge fun managers that Clinton needed someone “who could throw bombs” at Trump.
“I would be like, ‘Donald, I like you but you are an…airhead. You say nothing,” Cuban said, a comment that reportedly garnered big laughs. He referred to an imaginary Trump on stage, saying, “Donald, you’re rich right?” Cuban said to an imaginary Trump on stage. “Then why don’t you build a wall. You’re a patriot, right?”
In a follow up message to Cuban, I wondered if perhaps the media, in reporting that Cuban was firmly supporting Trump last summer, wasn’t merely a miscalculation because Cuban just preferred Trump to his main rival at the time, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). Cuban emailed me back a one-liner in response:
“I would take Trump over Cruz any time,” he wrote. “I would take a moose over Cruz.”
Our reporters have contacted the Bernie Sanders and Clinton camp’s for a response to the above story and await comment. Developing.
For aNewDomain, I’m Gina Smith.
Cover image: CNN Money, All Rights Reserved: Inset imageby Keith Allison (Flickr: Mark Cuban) [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.
