Billionaire Mark Cuban schools Donald Trump, UFC’s Dana White on inflation, tariffs

Billionaire NBA owner Mark Cuban is backing Vice President Kamala Harris in this month’s presidential election against ex-president and Republican nominee Donald Trump, and his support for the Democrat is coming in hot.
Cuban has been busy setting the record straight on Trump — his policies and how they have affected real working-class folks.
The masterclass continued on Wednesday when Cuban pinpointed what he calls the “root” of the United States’ inflation, which currently sits at 2.4%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“You have to look at the root of inflation,” Cuban told the News Nation Town Hall panel, which included ESPN pundit Stephen A. Smith. “I’ll tell you exactly when the very first kernel of inflation was set, and that was in April of 2020. It was right at the early days of the pandemic. The gas prices were $1.87 (per gallon). The oil companies went to Donald Trump and said, ‘We are getting crushed with gas prices at $1.87. Please go to Saudi Arabian and your friend MBS (Mohammed bin Salman), please go to Russia and your friend Vladimir Putin, and ask them to reduce production.’ So, he had a choice to make. Does he help his oil company cronies or does he help keep gas prices low?
“You already know what he did. … He went to MBS and Putin and said, ‘Please reduce production.’ That was the day inflation started. And you can track minute by minute, hour by hour, month by month, year by year, quarter by quarter, that as long as that agreement was in place, up until 2022, gas prices kept on going up. The minute that agreement came out and production changed, gas prices started going down and you saw inflation go down. So, you can take all you want and blame it on the Biden administration, but it started with Donald Trump.”
Cuban also checked UFC CEO and president Dana White, who didn’t know what he had gotten himself into when he agreed to debate the Mavericks minority owner before a national audience.
White, who introduced Trump at the Republican National Convention and spoke at Trump’s infamous rally at Madison Square Garden, was left stumped after claiming Harris would not have been the Democratic nominee if she hadn’t been “slid in,” and that she and President Joe Biden hadn’t accomplished anything in four years.
“Dana, I love you, but you are so wrong,” Cuban said. “Trump inflation was up 25% over the Obama economy. He decided not to take action and allow 100,000 people to keep on dying in Yemen. Talk to him about his tariffs. … He had four years to make tariffs work with China. China kicked his (expletive), and took him to court because he didn’t know how tariffs work and it hurt the economy.
“The economy was rolling along and it was so hit by the tariffs that his appointment to the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, had to cut interest rates three times. And then we get to the real point of reckoning, the pandemic. And what does he do? He says if we don’t test people, the virus didn’t really happen. He holds back on resources, except for Vladimir Putin, to keep people from getting healthy. That is not an accomplished president, Dana. He has not done anything. What he got, he inherited.”
Many believe Cuban is positioning himself to run as an independent candidate in 2028. But he appears to be doing what he can to present facts and preserve democracy in the meantime.
Todderick Hunt covers Sports and Culture and Recruiting. Have a story idea or a tip? He can be reached at [email protected].