Mark Cuban Joins Harris on Trail 2024 rare

Billionaire investor Mark Cuban hammered Republican Donald Trump over his vow to implement sweeping tariffs, calling it a “stupid” move that would only raise costs for US households already worried about high prices. Mark Cuban Joins Harris on Trail

“We all know that across-the-board tariffs are a tax on everybody,” Cuban said at a campaign event for Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in La Crosse, Wisconsin, on Thursday. “Hear me when I say: Donald Trump wants you to have a lousy Christmas.” Mark Cuban Joins Harris on Trail

Cuban is a longtime Trump critic and one of Harris’ most vocal advocates in the business community. A co-owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks who also appears on the television show Shark Tank, Cuban has a net worth of $7.9 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Mark Cuban Joins Harris on Trail

Harris at the same event also castigated Trump over his pledge to hit both US adversaries and allies with tariffs — a move that the Republican former president says would raise revenue and convince manufacturers to bring operations back to the US. Mark Cuban Joins Harris on Trail

The vice president has said the impact of those plans would be a “national sales tax.” Mark Cuban Joins Harris on Trail

“Essentially, he plans on putting a 20% tax, if not higher, on everyday basic necessities, which economists have estimated will cost the average American $4,000 more a year,” Harris said. Mark Cuban Joins Harris on Trail

Trump has vowed a 60% levy on imports from China and 10% duties on the rest of the world, which he says will help fund plans to renew expiring tax cuts and other tax breaks and credits. But most economists have said the tariffs are unlikely to create the revenue he needs and that they are likely to send inflation higher and raise pressure on the Federal Reserve over interest rates. Mark Cuban Joins Harris on Trail

The former president defended his agenda in an interview on Tuesday with Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait at the Economic Club of Chicago, saying policies to increase tariffs were for the “protection of the companies that we have here and the new companies that will move in.”

The economy — and the high prices that have strained US households — are a major issue in the campaign and a political liability for Harris, with polls showing voters prefer Trump’s approach on the issue, though the vice president has narrowed that gap.

The event in Wisconsin with Cuban is one of three stops Harris is making in the state on Thursday, part of a weeklong push in the Democratic Blue Wall — a trio of states, also including Michigan and Pennsylvania, that offer her clearest path to victory.

Tariffs are paid by importers and the cost is typically passed on partly or entirely to consumers.

“This man has so little understanding of tariffs, he thinks that China pays for this. This is the same guy that also thought Mexico would pay for the wall,” Cuban said on Thursday, referencing Trump’s 2016 campaign mantra that the US neighbor to the south would pay for a border wall.

Cuban said tariffs on Chinese goods would ripple through Main Street shops across America.

“When people can’t buy as much as they were going to, because prices went up because of these stupid Chinese tariffs, not only is it a bad Christmas for you, but it’s a bad Christmas for every single retailer,” he said, labeling Trump “the Grinch.”

With assistance from Skylar Woodhouse.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.