Billionaire Mark Cuban said the presidential campaign team for Kamala Harris had asked him to submit vetting papers for the vice president position, which he declined.
In a video clip published on Thursday, Cuban was asked by political commentator Tim Miller, who’d heard a rumor of the exchange, if the former Dallas Mavericks owner was really courted by the Harris campaign for the role.
“Yeah,” Cuban said, nodding.
“The second part of my response was: ‘I’m not very good as the number two person,'” he added. “And so the last thing we need is me telling Kamala, you know, the president, that: ‘No, that’s a dumb idea.'”
Cuban said he’s also “not real good at the shaking hands and kissing babies” bit of a vice president’s role.
He mused that the Harris campaign would have looked “different” with him as a vice presidential pick instead of Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor who joined Harris on the ticket.
“My personality is completely different than Tim’s, my experiences, my backgrounds are completely different. I think I cut through the shit more directly, I’m not a politician,” said Cuban, who fiercely backed Harris’ campaign in 2024.
But he said a Harris run or administration with him as VP would have ended disastrously.
“It would have been awful. She would have fired me within six days,” Cuban said.
“It would have been better than the present situation,” Miller said.
“Yes, that’s true,” Cuban replied. “But, you know, I really thought she was going to win.”
When former President Joe Biden abruptly dropped out of the running post-nomination in July 2024, Cuban was one of the earliest and most vocal private-sector supporters for Harris, appearing at her events in swing states and fielding press calls.
During that period, he suggested that Harris could appoint him to lead entities such as the Federal Trade Commission or the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“It’s something I could do to have an impact,” he told Business Insider in September.
But he‘s also said at the time that he wasn’t keen on a Cabinet position, telling ABC a month later that he preferred to be a “disruptor as an entrepreneur.”
Cuban and the press office for Harris did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.
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