Billionaire Mark Cuban, a top economic surrogate for Vice President Kamala Harris, found himself triggered after Breitbart News pressed him on tariffs and America First economic policies.
A user on X asked Cuban to provide the “single biggest reason” he is supporting Vice President Kamala Harris and the biggest reason he is not supporting former President Donald Trump.
Cuban, bizarrely, pointed to Harris’s economic policies, asserting that she has “great policies for Small Business & Entrepreneurs, the biggest drivers of jobs and growth”:
Concerning Trump, Cuban accused him of attempting to overturn the last election. That prompted another X user to push back, and Cuban responded by asking for Trump’s policies for small business and entrepreneurs.
Breitbart News’s Chuck Flint responded by pointing to Trump’s tax cuts and regulatory relief.
“Kamala just wants to hand out money. Traditionally, the government isn’t good at discerning future success. This reduces the likelihood of any ROI (however that’s measured),” Flint responded:
Cuban provided a lengthy response.
“Across the board tariffs is regulatory relief and tax cuts? 200 percent on companies adhering to his USMCA is a tax cut?”
“Saying the tax rate would be different if a company imports anything, reduces regulation, and isn’t picking winners and losers?” he continued, stating that Harris’s housing incentive, child tax credit, and “efficiency programs were coming, including using new tech to stay ahead globally and militarily.”
“Donald says he wants to use a guy who benefits from billions in tax benefits, has billions in government contracts and manufactures billions of dollars worth of cars in China. Could there be any conflicts that could arise there?” Cuban continued:
“I’m not referring to regulatory relief via Trump’s tariffs, although I’m glad you’ve acknowledged their success,” Flint said, noting he is referring to “regulations imposed by federal agencies.”
“The current U.S. regulatory economy would be the world’s 9th largest behind Canada. It’s currently estimated to be $1.94 trillion annually by the Competitive Enterprise Institute,” he explained to Cuban, making it clear that “nothing crushes small businesses like bureaucratic red tape – something that a businessman such as yourself surely recognizes.”
Flint also pointed out that the market shot up after Trump won in 2016 because everyone knew deregulation was coming:
Trump made good on his promises too. He used the Congressional Review Act to repeal 16 Obama era regs. The CRA had only been used successfully 1 time prior to Trump being in office.
Kamala will just continue suffocating Americans with regulatory red – but we’re all relieved to hear the federal government will be vetting 1st time homebuyers before handing out $25k…they’ve got a great track record when it comes to waste, fraud and abuse.
As for tax cuts, we need to extend Trump’s tax cuts because most expire at the end of 2025. Companies need expensing and R&D provisions to be continued.
Breitbart News’s Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle pointed out that Cuban was clearly struggling to defend “Kamalanomics.”
“It’s unhinged behavior like this that is leading many to believe Kamala’s campaign is in meltdown. Betting markets have swung hard back to Trump in recent days and he’s the favorite again,” he noted:
At that point, Cuban attempted to offer a retort, failing to address any of the actual points made about deregulation:
What about now ? Are his tariffs 10, 20, 60 percent ? Will companies that follow the USMCA get a 200 pct tariff ? Does he even know that 75 percent of manufacturers have fewer than 20 employees ? Does he realize the impact those tariffs can have on them ?
Does he even understand that a 200 pct tariff on an American company makes their Chinese competitors even cheaper ?
What is even crazier about his gibberish about getting American and foreign companies to bring manufacturing over here is that he has no clue about robotics
Kamala has talked about incentives for new technologies. That’s how you bring back and increase manufacturing in the USA. That’s why TMSC already is already adding more capabilities.
Boyle pointed out that Cuban is “obsessed with stopping tariffs arguing they’re not effective in protecting U.S. industries … except the issue is major companies right now (like makers of EVs) are making products in China (or big parts of them) laughing at us as they ship them in and sell them cheap”:
“The ultimate irony here if you want to know the effectiveness of tariffs is look how impactful a lengthy Longshoremen union strike would have been — their own boss said it would have shut the country down in a matter of weeks,” Boyle added. “He wasn’t wrong. Because so much is made overseas”:
That prompted a response from Cuban, who claimed that he supports “strategic” tariffs.
“Across the board tariffs are an inflationary tax proposed by someone who doesn’t understand how tariffs work. Let me explain the underpinning of why across the board tariffs don’t work,” Cuban said, essentially explaining why he does not support America First policies.
“The first fact is that the majority of American consumers will not pay up for American made products. If they would, all of this would be moot. Companies would have an incentive to build here. Even if it cost more,” he claimed, asserting that companies would build here if they could.
“You can across the board tariff all you want, but that doesn’t change the cost to manufacture here or invent consumers to pay up,” he asserted, arguing that the cost of manufacturing has to be reduced “or the price buyers are willing to pay has to go up.”
“Robotics allows the cost to manufacture to go down. Which in turn allows the price to buyers to go down. That’s what Harris understands that Trump doesn’t,” he claimed:
“So if you want ‘strategic tariffs,’ then you support Trump. Because Kamala is against tariffs altogether. She’s made that pretty clear in recent interviews when she’s been asked about the Trump tariffs that Biden kept,” Boyle said. “You’re literally making the case for Trump”:
“While I got your attention, Mark, let me ask you this particularly post-COVID. Do you think it’s acceptable that China currently makes close to (probably by now actually more than) a majority of the nitrile gloves imported into America? That is from USITC data— story I did on matter here,” Boyle continued, laying into Cuban.
“You can thank Kamala Harris (and Joe Biden) next time a doctor or nurse touches you with a glove that was probably made in China. Because the Biden admin screwed up a Trump funded plan to build factories to make this stuff here per WaPo and other outlets,” he continued, providing examples.
“So when the next pandemic comes, is it in US strategic interest to depend so heavily on China for things as critical as gloves? (This issue exists across almost every product and industry FWIW, not just health industry PPE, but it’s a good illustration of the broader problem),” he asked, continuing:
CHIPS Act that you cite passed two years ago. Has it had any meaningful impact on this trend? Clearly not. China is still rapidly gaining market share in major industries, slowly but surely bleeding the USA dry. But Kamala goes on “Call Her Daddy” podcast so she’s cool yo. But if you want this slow bleed death of American industry to actually stop, you need to elect a different person who will actually do something about it instead of just offer lip service and pass talking points bills while encouraging the behavior that caused the drain of American industry to begin with.
“Trump actually wants to address this issue, for the record, and has discussed it. So has his running mate. I don’t know if Kamala even knows what a nitrile glove is. But hey, next time you get to hang with Kamala, tell her I’d love to spend an hour interviewing her about trade and economic policy,” Boyle said, issuing the challenge.
“We both know she’s incapable of answering the questions so she’ll never do it (which is why she’s doing unserious shows all week) but worth a shot I guess,” he added:
At that point, Cuban offered a short response, asserting that “Nitrile Gloves are a Perfect Example of a product that should have a strategic tariff for the reasons you mention,” and he provided a link regarding the CHIPS Act:
“Yeah, the USTR finally did this inside of two months before the election after we relentlessly for months criticized the current administration on this. But Kamala HERSELF attacked exactly this policy in the debate as a ‘sales tax,’ before Katherine Tai—the USTR—rolled this out a week or so after the debate,” Boyle responded, asking if Harris will keep those exact tariffs:
Would she keep employing Tai and FTC’s Lina Khan or give in to business community pressure to fire them? Why can’t the White House articulate the policy positions of the sitting Vice President of the United States on this front? (KJP was asked about Kamala’s debate comments during a WH press briefing and did a piss poor job explaining it all — which is why Kamala should do an interview HERSELF on this) Why did Kamala Harris call Biden and Trump tariff positions a “sales tax”?
Kamala’s running mate continued that false claim this weekend on Fox News Sunday when he falsely called Trump’s and Biden’s tariffs a “sales tax,” thereby demonstrating the actual people with their names on the ballot this year (Kamala and Walz) either choose to lie about trade policy or they simply are too daft to understand it. Which of those two outcomes it is we cannot be sure of at this stage without more information.
Boyle concluded that Cuban is “essentially the only economic surrogate for Kamala Harris.”
“We could solve these questions very easily with a serious and in depth economic policy interview. You should tell Kamala to agree to one with me and others about all of this stuff. If she wants to be president she should be able to articulate an economic vision and answer questions about it,” he challenged. “She has not yet done so”:
Boyle pointed out to Cuban that Harris has yet to articulate where she stands on this.
“AT ALL. Don’t you think the candidate himself or herself should be able to explain themselves? Trump can answer questions about specific tariffs. I’ve talked to him about it and published plenty of interviews. Several others have as well too. Kamala, as far as anyone can tell, cannot do it,” he said.
“The only commentary she has made is calling tariffs a ‘sales tax in the debate which her running mate echoed on FNS this weekend. (Obviously as you laid out here, tariffs are not a sales tax). So…. Why can’t she explain that? Why can’t she sit down and say: here’s what I’m going to do, and here’s what I’m not going to do. Tariff on this, no tariff on that. Etc etc etc.,” he asked: