I'm surprised Fox keeps allowing Mark Cuban to appear on the network, because he's been one of the better Harris surrogates when it comes to taking apart Republicans' and Trump's nonsense. Cuban made an appearance on this Saturday's Cavuto Live, and dismantled host Neil Cavuto's lame attempt to pretend Biden's approach to tariffs has been the same as Trump's. They haven't. Biden's have been targeted.
Cuban reminded viewers about the damage Trump did to soybean farmers thanks to his trade war with China. He also shot down Cavuto lying about Harris' proposal on taxing capital gains.
CAVUTO: Let me step back and get your sense of tariffs, because a key part of Donald Trump's new economic initiative, if he gets back in the White House, is to slap severe and huge tariffs, largely on China, the likes of which we've never seen.
Now, I know Kamala Harris has been critical of that, but by and large, the Biden administration with her have kept most of the tariffs that were in place under Donald Trump, under them as well.
CUBAN: So let's just look at that, right? During the Trump administration, he got his butt kicked by China in a trade war. Soybean farmers formed, farmers got destroyed. But in any event, in terms of the tariffs that was kept before he left office, the first thing that happened was the tariffs from China went down.
I think they went down from 25 percent to 15 percent to 7.5 percent. And so those tariffs that were kept are at a much slower rate and are far more strategic. And then there's the tariffs with the EU.
Joe Biden signed an agreement, a treaty with them, saying there'd be no bidirectional tariffs for at least five years. And so while it's true that there were some tariffs that were kept, most of them were strategic and in some cases where they're strategic, and I've always said strategic tariffs are great, you know, for EVs and steel and other things, he increased those.
Look, no one's complaining if Donald Trump wants to come in and do strategic tariffs. It's the fact that he wants to do across-the-board tariffs. I think what people don't realize is the things you buy for Christmas, we're getting to the point where we're looking at Christmas presents now. Fast forward a year when we're looking at presents. If Donald Trump institutes a 60 percent tariff on imported Chinese goods, most of those presents you're looking at buying for your kids, your family, your friends, they're going way up, 60 percent or more.
And when that happens, not only do you buy less and your kids don't have the Christmas that you want them to have, but the small businesses, medium business, large businesses, they suffer even more because when their businesses decline in the fourth quarter is their entire business, you know, when they book everything, they're going to get crushed and it gets worse from there.
You know, when you look at tariffs, there's always retaliatory tariffs. China came back and said, tariffs. So farmers who wanted to export soybeans, there were stories written about farmers committing suicide.
CAVUTO: So you're worried that the tit for tat gets out of control?
CUBAN: Yeah, he got crushed last time.
CAVUTO: He disagrees with that conversation.
No dispute or facts to counter anything Cuban said, just Trump "disagrees." Well, I guess that settles it then Neil. So of course he changed the subject, and moved onto lying about Harris' proposals with this pathetic pity the rich routine, where he continually ignores the fact, which he stated in the beginning, that the capital gains tax increase is only going to apply to those who make over $400K, and where he continually interrupted Cuban every time Cuban countered one of Cavuto's lies.
CAVUTO: But let me ask you a little bit about mixed messages we get, even from Kamala Harris.
You had wanted to clarify, I don't know why you felt the need to do so, that she will not raise the capital gains tax. But at any point, she's raising a lot of other taxes on corporations and the rest, and she says she's going to spare those who make $400,000 or less.
But the fact of the matter is, she is targeting the rich. That would be people like you, because she argues people like you don't pay your fair share.
So, that's got to trouble you somewhat, doesn't it?
CUBAN: No, no. So, let's go through. So, what she's not doing is she's not going to do a tax on unrealized capital gains. That was in Joe Biden's budget. It's never ever been proposed.
It was wrong when he put it in there. It's still wrong. It's not going to happen. So, that's one issue.
Two, she says she's raising the capital gains tax to 28 percent. I can live with that. That's not going to change anybody's behavior.
Corporate taxes, let's look at what's going on there. There are-
CAVUTO: You don't think that would change? Maybe not for you, but you don't think someone who sees that tax on an investment or real estate or any purchase now suddenly up to 28 percent, it might be just a blink for a billionaire like yourself, but for a lot of people, it could make a big difference, right?
CUBAN: It's not a tax on an investment. It's a tax on your gains once you reach a certain threshold. So you've already done really, really well if you've reached a threshold of where it's going to be taxed 28 percent. So we're not talking about -
(crosstalk)
CAVUTO: Well, that doesn't matter if you're rich or poor? Right? It doesn't matter, you're going to be taxed at 28 percent versus 21 percent? Threshold or no, right?
CUBAN: No, no, no. No, if you're under the threshold, your rate's not going up, best I can remember right? But -
CAVUTO: But, what about the fairness thing. The fairness issue, it keeps coming up, and for the life of me, I've heard this for decades covering this issue, that the rich aren't paying their fair share. I can remember Bernie Sanders talking about the time the top rate was 90 percent. We're a long way from there. Then it got down to 72 percent, you know, 40, whatever. 37 now is the top rate, and I'm just wondering, what do you think is a fair take for the rich to pay?
CUBAN: You know, it's really contextual. When our deficit is where it is, you're going to have to charge a little bit more. If we get the deficit down lower, and the deficit has been dropping the last three years, the percentage of GDP has been dropping the last three years, if we can get it lower, then I can make an argument that there's no reason to raise them, but that's part of reducing the deficit.
The rest of the media needs to quit treating Fox as a "news" organization and call it what it is. It's a right wing propaganda outlet that lies constantly to its viewers. Cavuto was basically acting as a Trump surrogate for the entire interview.