Mark Cuban: Why Joe Biden is ‘the right choice for business’
At multiple points in the past few years, Mark Cuban said he was considering running for president in 2020. That never came to pass, and the tech billionaire and Dallas Mavericks owner is making no secret about who he wants to win on Election Day in 2020.
Cuban has had no problem criticizing both President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, in the past. But the "Shark Tank" star endorsed Biden earlier this year and on Monday, saying in an Instagram Live interview that the former Vice President is the "right choice for business." Cuban cited as his reason the economic instability caused by what he called Trump's "botched" response to the coronavirus pandemic.
"You always have to realize that without leadership, there's instability. And instability is the worst thing that can happen to a business," Cuban said on Instagram Live in an interview with Rhett Buttle, the Biden campaign's national business advisor.
"If you can't open the doors in your community, whether it's because of instability, civil unrest or Covid, it doesn't matter how great of an entrepreneur [you are], it doesn't matter how many customers you may want or have because they can't come see you," Cuban continued.
"Just the way that Donald Trump has just botched so completely the response to Covid, he has crushed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of businesses."
Trump's campaign did not immediately respond to CNBC Make It's request for comment on Cuban's statements.
In May, Cuban told Fox News that Trump "deserves a lot of credit for what happened with the economy," however, "those days are behind us now," he said.
While the president has typically enjoyed more support on his handling of the economy throughout the election process, more recent polls have shown that support eroding, and CNBC's All-America Economic Survey even showed a week ago that voters are now split between Biden and Trump on the economy.
Cuban has frequently criticized Trump's response to the pandemic, which has now killed more than 230,000 people in the U.S., according to the CDC. But he has also criticized Biden, saying in April that the former vice president had been "too silent" at that early point in the pandemic, and that Biden was "not really offering solutions in a way that builds confidence."
Cuban, who said he voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 but has also advised Trump as part of the president's "Opening Our Country" economic council during the pandemic, has been outspoken about the need to balance public safety with concerns over the economic fallout of restrictions on businesses. And the billionaire has also called for more help from the government for small businesses in his home state of Texas, as well as for regular $1,000 stimulus checks to be mailed to all American households every two weeks for up to two months.
On Monday, though, Cuban said in the Instagram Live interview that he believes Biden would be a more trustworthy leader than President Trump when it comes to handling the coronavirus pandemic going forward, including rolling out an eventual vaccine.
"We need somebody who can lead, who's honest, who's authentic, who deals with scientists and believes in science and understands, as things change, how to adapt," Cuban said, attributing those qualities to Biden.
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Mark Cuban: 'Technologically illiterate' Joe Biden and Donald Trump both 'scare me'