Mark Cuban: Trump ‘always plays the victim card’

Billionaire Mark Cuban knocked President Trump during a combative Fox News interview on Wednesday, saying the president regularly “plays the victim card” by blaming Democrats and the media.

“He’s the most powerful man in the world and he always plays the victim card. ‘The Dems are out to get me, the media is out to get me.’ You’ve got to be the leader, you’ve got to be the strongest man in the game,” the Dallas Mavericks owner said while speaking with Sean Hannity.

Mark Cuban: He’s the most powerful man in the world and he always plays the victim card. The dems are out to get me. The media is out to get me… He’s supposed to be the world’s best counter puncher and he hasn’t knocked anybody out. He just plays the victim. pic.twitter.com/jgRNkvV8hE

— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) May 21, 2020

The Fox News host argued that the Obama administration illicitly spied on the Trump transition team, a reference to the criminal investigation and subsequent charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who admitted in court that he lied to the FBI about his conversations with Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s then-ambassador to the U.S., during the transition period between the 2016 election and Trump’s inauguration. He later withdrew his guilty plea.

“Mark, Mark, they spied on the guy,” Hannity said. “They spied on a candidate whose transition team … they spied on his presidency. Those are [Attorney General] Bill Barr’s words, not Sean Hannity.”

“Who cares?” Cuban shot back. “He’s the most powerful man in the world. Be powerful, be a leader.”

“He’s supposed to be the world’s best counterpunch. He hasn’t been able to knock anybody out. He just plays the victim,” Cuban added.

Trump and his allies have long claimed that top government officials cut corners to seek the wiretap on a Trump campaign aide during the 2016 election out of political bias.

Cuban, a frequent critic of the president, also argued that Trump no longer seeks out qualified officials for his administration and instead relies on loyalty from political allies.

“I think that Donald doesn’t put the best people in place any longer. He did at the beginning and I was proud of him at the beginning, but now he just wants people who are loyal to him. That’s a problem and it’s created more problems in this pandemic,” he said.

Cuban, who said in 2016 that he would make a better president than the former reality TV show host, has said in recent weeks that a White House bid is “highly unlikely” in his future but that he has not ruled it out.

“It was closed, but we have such crazy times and I’ve been getting so many requests that I at least want to keep the door open. But it’s still highly unlikely,” Cuban told Hill.TV’s “Rising” earlier this month. “There would have to be something more than the pandemic.”