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Is Mark Cuban Running For President?

by Lia Beck

In questions I never thought I'd ever need to ask news: Is Mark Cuban running for President? Pre-2016, I would be sure that the idea of Dallas Mavericks owner and Shark Tank Shark Mark Cuban running for President would be 100 percent a joke. But now we live in a world where Apprentice host and Top 10 famous ginger Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee, so I don't know what to think.

While they two were announcing an award at the 2016 Billboard Music Awards, current Miss America Betty Cantrell asked Cuban if he had an announcement. "Maybe you're running for president?" she said. Cuban responded, "Today, I, Mark Cuban, am here to announce... this next category."

So, Cuban didn't announce he's running for President, but that doesn't mean his potential involvement in politics was just a BBMAs joke. Cuban told Meet The Press earlier on Sunday that he'd be open to being the Vice Presidential nominee for either Trump or Hilary Clinton. "If [Trump] asked me, I'd be like, 'OK, Donald. That's great. Let's talk about it. But we're both going to have to dig in and really look and understand the issues so we can come up with solutions,'" he said.

As for whether he'd run with Clinton, the 57-year-old said, he'd be interested but that "she would have to go more to the center."

And this wasn't even the first time the possibility of Trump and Cuban running together came up. In July 2015, Cuban praised (ish) Trump on his messaging app Cyber Dust, writing,

I don't care what his actual positions are. I don't care if he says the wrong thing. 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.

Well, he does sound like the type of person who would actually do it. So, don't expect a Cuban presidential run, but as for a Trump-Cuban ticket? Stranger things have happened. (I.e. This entire election.)