Donald Trump’s bid for a second term of U.S. presidency will be unbeatable for any current Democrat presidential candidate, media magnate Mark Cuban said on May 14.
The star of reality show “Shark Tank” and co-owner of 2929 Entertainment is convinced none of the current presidential candidates from the Democratic Party will defeat incumbent President Trump.
He believes the credibility of today’s elected representatives has significantly eroded.
“If you look at why people voted for Donald Trump, in my opinion, first and foremost it was because he wasn’t a politician,” he said. “If you look at the Democratic field, it’s all politicians, and politicians are the least trusted of every profession.”
He is concerned a number of presidential hopefuls rely too much on policies that appear to lack substance and seem almost like sensational “headline porn.”
“I don’t think they believe what they’re proposing is passable [in Congress],” Cuban said.
The problem is these sensational policies would involve some sort of trickle-down taxation which, in his opinion, “does not work.”
“I think that trickle-down economics is a failure. I think trickle-down taxation is just as big a failure,” he said.
Cuban, whose net wealth is estimated to be $4.1 billion, is not ruling out running for the U.S. presidency himself at either this election or in the future. He previously considered running in the 2016 election, when he claimed he could beat both Hillary Clinton and Trump, but he changed his mind because of the burden it would place on his three young children.
However, if he decides to run for president in 2020 he would prefer to do it as an independent candidate.
“I still think there’s a real opportunity for somebody who is in the middle but has some charisma, has the ability to relate to both sides but is not a politician,” he said. “The reality is people don’t trust politicians.”
Billionaire and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz also indicated in January his interest in running for president as an independent, but media reports suggest he may have reconsidered.
When asked about the idea of former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden taking the nation’s top job, Cuban was undecided.
“There’s nobody that really stands out, even though Biden’s leading the polls,” he said. “I like [former] Vice President Biden, I think he’s smart, I think he could do a decent job but I think it’s still way too early to tell, and there’s a lot of change yet to come.”
