Mark Cuban Praises Donald Trump As ‘Best Thing To Happen To Politics In A Long Time’
Mark Cuban has taken to social media to congratulate his frenemy, GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump, for fundamentally changing politics as usual.
The billionaire Dallas Mavericks owner and Shark Tank (and Sharknado 3) star revealed his new-found respect for Trump, with whom he has publicly feuded in the past, on his Cyber Dust messaging app yesterday.
More than once, Trump has bashed Cuban for failing in an Apprentice knockoff called The Benefactor on ABC back in 2004. About a week ago, Cuban referred to Trump as a “paper tiger” who might lack enough cash liquidity to mount a run for the presidency. Last year, Trump called Cuban “a lightweight” after the Mavs owner questioned Trump’s financial capacity to buy the NFL Buffalo Bills.
In a follow-up Cyber Dust posting, Cuban seems to have changed his tune about the brash New York real estate billionaire and fellow reality show star who is currently the “maverick” front-runner for the 2016 Republican nomination.
“Hey Dusters. Let’s talk Donald Trump.
“I have to honestly (say) he is probably the best thing to happen to politics in a long long time.
“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.
“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 scribbed. 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 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 do rather than what headlines they create.
“Congrats Donald.”
Thank you @mcuban for your nice words. I am rapidly becoming a @dallasmavs fan!
https://t.co/sLXkCh9qfg— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 28, 2015
In a recent interview on ESPN Radio, Cuban declined to commit to voting for any of the announced candidates in either the Republican or Democrat field, Trump included.
The Mavs owner also explained, however, that voters are “tired of politics as usual…everything being scripted, we’re tired of every comment being politically correct. And, you know, even though Donald has to spend a lot of time pulling not just his foot but the toenails and the stuff that falls off his cuticles out of his mouth, at least it’s refreshing to have somebody who is just gonna say what’s on their mind, and give an honest, if not insensitive, response to a question. To me, it’s great.”
Reacting to Mark Cuban’s Donald Trump commentary, the Washington Post noted that “In a world in which lots of people — Cuban included — believe that political correctness has run wild and the outrage police are everywhere, someone who is willing to just say stuff and not back down has real appeal.”
[Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images Sport]
