Billionaire Mark Cuban’s verbal gymnastics defending Vice President Kamala Harris and her tax plan prompted heated pushback from CNBC hosts.
The “Shark Tank” star and entrepreneur acknowledged he is no fan of the capital gains tax plan because it would “kill the stock market.” Still, he confounded “Squawk Box” hosts Andrew Ross Sorkin and Rebecca Quick with his head-scratching defense of Harris who is just looking for a way to “fairly” tax the wealthy.
Praising Harris as “open-minded,” Cuban revealed in the phone interview that he has been in communication with the Democratic nominee’s campaign consulting on economic policies a few times a week.
(Video Credit: CNBC TV)
“What I told them is if you tax unrealized gains, you’re going to kill the stock market, and it’s going to be the ultimate employment plan for private equity because companies are not going to go public because you can get whipsawed,” Cuban said.
“Even though [Harris] is not directly conflicting the Biden tax plan, to her her value proposition is, we need to tax everybody fairly,” he added.
He had high praise for the vice president’s speech in New Hampshire on Wednesday where she revealed new economic plans and proposed a lower increase in the capital gains tax than President Joe Biden. Cuban claimed Harris is separating herself from the administration’s policies and is “going center 100 percent.”
“I appreciate you calling in and telling us what you’re hearing on these fronts, that’s great, but as you said yourself, you can’t speak for the vice president,” Quick said, dropping a reality check on Cuban who is a minority owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks.
“These are things they’re telling you. Who knows what they’re telling other people? My guess is they’re telling anybody who is donating to them exactly what they want to hear at this point,” she said.
“No, no, no, no. Absolutely, positively not,” Cuban insisted.
“Why do you think they’re telling you the truth and not telling other people other things? If they won’t say it publicly. Say it publicly so we can hold you to it,” Quick said.
“I get it, but you’ve got to get the details right,” Cuban contended.
“Yeah, but we have 60 days until an election,” Quick pointed out, adding that she didn’t want “everybody to trade on what we think and what we feel.”
“Like any good CEO, you’ve got to do it when you get it right. Not because your customer is yelling, ‘Well, we’re waiting on new pricing!’” Cuban argued.
Sorkin interjected to question the timeline of implementing any such policy.
“The number of people this truly impacts is less than 1% of the voting population and so this is not number one priority for her, it’s not, in terms of speaking about it and getting the word out,” Cuban said, claiming it was being overblown since only a small percentage of voters would be directly affected.
“She wanted to talk about entrepreneurs, startups, founders first,” he said. “The people like me in my position, we’re not at the top of the list. We’re closer to the bottom, so we’re not going to get that full, detailed disclosure first, and I’m okay with that.”
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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida. Powers also contributes to BizPac Review.
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