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Mark Cuban schools House Democrat with basic economics lesson for claiming Trump is broke: 'How do I know? Math.'
March 19, 2024
Billionaire businessman Mark Cuban schooled Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) on Tuesday for falsely claiming that Donald Trump is broke.
Lieu, a far-left congressman, celebrated news that Trump cannot secure the $464 million bond required before he can appeal the New York civil fraud ruling against him.
Eschewing basic economic understanding, Lieu took the news to mean that Trump is broke.
"Trump claims he is a billionaire. But he can’t pay a $464 million judgement. That means he is lying. How do I know? Math," Lieu posted on social media.
Lieu's post gained viral attention on X because it appears to demonstrate that he does not understand that liquidity is not the same thing as someone's net worth.
The fact is that Trump is a billionaire because his assets outweigh his liabilities. But that doesn't mean Trump has billions of dollars in cash stuffed in bank accounts, which anyone with basic money knowledge understands would be a financial sin.
On Tuesday, Cuban accepted the thankless task of helping educate Lieu.
"[Y]ou are wrong on this topic, Ted. Net worth is completely different than cash in the bank," Cuban began.
"We were in a zero interest rate environment for a long, long time. So keeping cash in the bank or even money markets was dumb. In fact, searching for yield is what killed small banks last year. Also dumb was keeping interest rates that low for that long," he continued.
Cuban told Lieu that he could argue Trump is in this position because he "sucked at growing his net worth." But Cuban said that Lieu cannot argue that Trump is broke because the former president is unable to post the massive bond.
"On a more macro basis, Ted: Even if rates were along a long-term trend line for the past 10 years, few people are keeping more than 45% of their assets in liquid assets," Cuban explained. "And as far as the bond companies, Trump's assets are mostly interests in commercial real estate and foreign assets. No bond company is loaning against them in this commercial real estate market — if ever."
For his part, Lieu doubled down, arguing that because no underwriter backed the bond that means Trump "has neither the assets nor the liquidity that he claims he has."
But securing the bond is "a practical impossibility," said insurance broker Gary Giulietti.
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Staff Writer
Chris Enloe is a staff writer for Blaze News
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