Mark Cuban open for The Daily Show Jon Stewart about telephone conversations with Donald Trump This surprised him after Stewart noted that the former president made an “initial appeal” to Cuban.

Cuban joined Stewart The daily show on Monday evening to discuss advances in artificial intelligence and the growing support for Trump in Silicon Valley and the technology industry.

Stewart once noted that his billionaire guest had long been a “disruptor” in the economy and that Trump, as the same personality type, had initially appealed when he entered politics. Cuban is perhaps best known for his work on The Shark Cat and as owner of the Mavericks basketball team.

“I think you said that Trump initially appealed to you because he’s a bit of an outsider – and we both know our government, there’s a status quo and a capture by lobbies and big corporations that write these laws and end up taking advantage of them, and that needs to be broken. When did you realize that he didn’t necessarily want to release this, but that he wanted to have the deed to the swamp signed over to him?” Stewart asked Cuban on Monday.

“About the third time I talked to him, he wasn’t interested in changing,” Cuban said.

The billionaire clarified that he was referring to phone conversations after Stewart wondered if Trump was a man who liked to Facetime.

Cuban recalled a conversation with Trump when he threatened to pull out of a CNBC debate in 2015.

“We were talking about this one debate for CNBC that he wasn’t going to be at – and I said to him, ‘Donald, why don’t you go to a small business in the area, sit at the table there and show your business savvy and show people that you’re a businessman,'” Cuban recalled.

He was shocked by Trump’s response.

“He says: Mark, Donald Trump and Mark Cuban don’t go to people’s homes and have dinner there, are you serious? That’s just the way he is,” he said.

Cuban also recalled wanting to discuss Trump’s “ground strategy” at the time, but the Republican declined to discuss such strategy, saying he had “all these religious people who will do the work for me.”

Trump’s “initial attraction” appears to have evaporated for Cuban after those conversations, which Stewart derisively referred to as “consulting sessions.” Cuban said he last spoke to Trump during the Covid-19 pandemic to help the administration respond, saying, “I’ve tried to help him with different things. Look, he’s still the president of the United States and it’s still our country.”

Watch it above via Comedy Central.

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