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Replies to post #7217 on Trump Media and Tech Group (Politics Allowed~Non-M
Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban lambasted former President Trump on Tuesday as a "snake oil salesperson" while explaining his decision to back President Biden in the upcoming election.
Why it matters: The endorsement from one of America's most high-profile businessmen comes as the 81-year-old president struggles in the polls amid swirling questions about his age and his handling of the Israel-Gaza conflict.
"I don't want a snake oil salesperson as President," Cuban told Axios by email Tuesday. "I'm voting for Biden/Harris over Trump all day every day."
Zoom in: "It's the snake oil salesperson vs the incumbent, traditional politician," Cuban said.
"One will tell you his snake oil will cure everything that ails you. The other will show you the details of his policies through charts, graphs and statements," Cuban said.
"He is precise and methodical and wants to sell the steak," Cuban said of Biden. "Not the sizzle."
"Trump voters are happy with their snake oil whether it works or not."
The big picture: The fresh comments from Cuban expand on his recent remarks that he would support Biden even if the president was on his death bed.
"If they were having his last wake, and it was him versus Trump, and he was being given last rites, I would still vote for Joe Biden," Cuban told Bloomberg on Monday after a meeting at the White House about prescription drug costs.
The tech billionaire and Dallas Mavericks minority owner co-founded a company called Cost Plus Drugs in 2022 which aims to bring down prices for generic drugs.
State of play: Trump's stranglehold on the GOP is set to be on full display as Super Tuesday results start to flow in, setting him up for a rematch with Biden in November's general election.
Cuban told Bloomberg he supported Nikki Haley, Trump's lone remaining Republican opponent, in the Texas primary — calling it a "protest vote against Trump."
The intrigue: Cuban also predicted a potential AI-driven "October Tech Surprise" before election day.
Cuban said the information a voter is served on the presidential candidates depends on what platform they use, with X increasingly leaning right, some other platforms leaning left, and TikTok users getting "different versions" of the news depending on their demographics. With most consumers now getting their news from such platforms, he believes "the campaign that figures out how to reverse engineer the algorithms and use them to their advantage" will be the one that wins critical undecided voters.
"It would not surprise me if someone is using machine learning and LLMs (large language models) to reverse engineer those algorithms in hopes of an 'October Tech Surprise,'" he said.
03/11/24 9:34 AM
‘Trump Employee 5’ Says Former President Should End 2024 Run
‘MOVE ON’
Longtime Mar-a-Lago valet Brian Butler also told CNN that he doesn’t believe the felony charges against Trump are a “witch hunt.”
AJ McDougall
Breaking News Reporter
William Vaillancourt
Published Mar. 11, 2024 5:48PM EDT
A longtime valet at Mar-a-Lago whose witness testimony helped investigators charge Donald Trump over his alleged efforts to illegally hoard and hide classified documents is speaking out for the first time about his involvement with the case, telling CNN on Monday that his former boss should quit his 2024 presidential campaign, and that he doesn’t believe the felony charges against Trump constitute “a witch hunt.”
Brian Butler, 41, worked for two decades as a club valet, chauffeur, and manager at Trump’s South Florida estate, and was at one point best friends with property manager Carlos De Oliveira. (De Oliveira and another Trump employee, Walt Nauta, both face criminal charges alongside the former president.)
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Butler is repeatedly referenced as “Trump Employee 5” in a federal superseding indictment, which outlines his role in allegedly helping to obstruct and conceal Trump’s hoarded material. He told CNN that he had had “no clue” he was shifting national secrets.
“For me, I’m just thinking, eh, the former president, he has a lot of stuff he likes to lug around with him,” Butler said of how he justified being told to move “10 to 15” boxes onto a plane at one point. Those boxes were the same white bankers boxes later included as evidence in the indictment, stored in a ballroom, bathroom, and various other unsecured locations around Mar-a-Lago.
Butler is most prominently featured in the indictment because of the suggestion that Trump may have dangled the promise of legal representation as a reward for securing De Oliveira’s loyalty. Two weeks after the FBI executed a search warrant at the resort in August 2022, according to the indictment, Nauta called “Trump Employee 5” to check in and “make sure Carlos is good,” in reference to De Oliveira. The employee, Butler, twice reassured Nauta that De Oliveira was loyal to Trump.
Butler said that he was with De Oliveira at a Florida casino food court when the call came in that Trump would provide him with a lawyer. De Oliveira hung up “happily,” according to CNN. Butler explained he later resisted efforts by De Oliveira to get him to accept an attorney through Trump, and secured legal representation elsewhere.
Butler told CNN that what is included in the indictment is just a small snippet of what he knows about what transpired at Mar-a-Lago that year. He is likely to share more when called to testify in court against Trump, Nauta, and De Oliveira.
“I felt like it was a total no-win situation for me. I mean, they’re asking me questions about one of my best friends,” Butler said. “I’m being honest. But I also have a bad feeling that what I’m saying is getting him into trouble. Nobody should have to go through that. And for [Trump] to get up there all the time and say the things he says about this being a witch hunt and everything… He just can’t take responsibility for anything.”
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When asked if he views Trump as a national security risk, Butler was critical of his former boss.
“I personally would just say I just don’t believe that he should be a presidential candidate at this time,” he said. “I think it’s time to move on.”
When The Source anchor Kaitlan Collins began to ask if people should feel “concerned,” Butler immediately agreed.
“Yeah, absolutely. I think we can do better,” Butler said, adding later of the Mar-a-Lago case that the American people “have the right to know the facts.”
Butler went on to criticize Trump’s stated defense in the case as “all bogus,” and lamented that “people believe him” nevertheless.
Butler continued: “To me, you have the ‘law and order’ president attacking agents, the special counsel on almost a daily basis, when these people are just taking their sworn oath—they took a sworn oath to basically follow the laws of this country. And now you have somebody attacking them. I don’t think that’s right.”
Trump has denied wrongdoing in the case, and his lawyer declined to comment to CNN. An attorney for De Oliveira, who has also pleaded not guilty, told the network in a statement, “We look forward to hearing more about Mr. Butler’s version of events when he is under oath and subject to penalty of perjury in the courtroom where that belongs, and we decline to try this case in the media.”
Butler quit his job at Mar-a-Lago in November 2022, feeling disillusioned. Federal investigators descended on him and De Oliveira four months later, when the pair were still “nearly inseparable,” as CNN put it. They frequently took evening walks together as prosecutors sniffed around. During one of these walks, Butler said, De Oliveira told him they were “all dirty,” having moved the boxes around for their boss.
These days, he said, he only sees De Oliveira around the neighborhood and on the news. The two don’t speak.
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