Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage via Getty Images(PITTSBURGH) — Billionaire investor Mark Cuban on Saturday questioned Donald Trump’s sanity, saying he has decided to vote for Hillary Clinton because the Republican nominee has gone “off the reservation” and “crazy.”
“Donald, initially, I really hoped he would be something different, that as a businessperson, I thought there was an opportunity there,” the Dallas Mavericks owner and “Shark Tank” star told CNN while campaigning with Clinton in his hometown of Pittsburgh Saturday. “But then, he went off the reservation and went bat-s–t crazy.”
Cuban, who once spoke fondly of the Republican nominee, also said that that now Trump “scares me.”
In recent weeks, Cuban has met with Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta to discuss a possible endorsement. An aide to Clinton says he ultimately called on Thursday night — before Clinton’s speech at the DNC — to say he was in.
While campaigning with Clinton Saturday, Cuban used the Pittsburgh slang word, “jagoff,” to express his dislike for Trump, and said: “I’m ready to tell you that I’m ready to vote for a true leader. I’m ready to vote for the American dream. I’m ready to tell the world that I’m here to endorse Hillary Clinton.”
Just last month, Cuban said on FOX Business that “there’s a good chance I’ll vote for Donald Trump” if Clinton picks Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren as her running mate. And in an earlier interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” in May, Cuban said he was open to running for vice president with either Clinton or Trump. The billionaire also described his political affiliation as “fiercely independent.”
But it wasn’t that long ago that Cuban was fully backing the Republican presidential nominee. Trump hosted one of his largest campaign rallies last September at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, home to Cuban’s Dallas Mavericks of the NBA and the NHL’s Dallas Stars.
A couple months earlier, Cuban called the real estate mogul “the best thing to happen to politics in a long time.”
“I have to honestly say he is probably the best thing to happen to politics in a long time,” Cuban said in a statement last July on Cyber Dust, the private-messaging app he created.
“I don’t care what his actual positions are, I don’t care if he says the wrong thing,” he continued. “He says what’s on his mind. He gives honest answers rather than prepared answers. This is more important than anything any candidate has done in years.”
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