Mark Cuban blasts Trump after the president attacks him on Twitter: 'Lol'

Allan Smith

Feb 12, 2017, 23:51 IST

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

Mark Cuban.

Billionaire business mogul Mark Cuban posted a series of tweets blasting Donald Trump Sunday after the president tweeted Cuban was "not smart enough" to be president.

Initially, one word was all Cuban tweeted to respond to Trump, who wrote Sunday, "I know Mark Cuban well," adding, "He backed me big-time but I wasn't interested in taking all of his calls. He's not smart enough to run for president!"

"Lol," Cuban wrote.

The owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks and star of ABC's "Shark Tank" followed up with screenshots of a pair of emails. One of which was a message he sent to Trump's team following a primary victory in April, which was marked up by Trump. The other, a lengthy email he sent to the then-presumptive Republican nominee in May.

"How soon they forget..." Cuban tweeted.

The first email, which Cuban sent congratulating Trump, contained a short reply from the future president.

"Mark - Wow, saw you on CNN - Nasty! What happened?" Trump wrote.

After a Twitter user responded to Cuban's tweets asking why the president was dissing the "Shark Tank" star on social media, Cuban said he did not know.

"But isn't it better for all of us that he is tweeting rather than trying to govern?" he added.

Trump's initial Sunday tweet followed a New York Post story from earlier in the day on how his team is planning ahead for his 2020 reelection effort. Sources told The Post that the idea of Cuban seeking the presidency and challenging Trump is the White House's "biggest fear" because he would have similar outsider appeal to Republicans and independents.

"He's not a typical candidate," one inside told The Post. "He appeals to a lot of people the same way Trump did."

"If you believe in the Trump revolution, you can believe a candidate like Mark Cuban could win an election," the source added. "And Mark is the kind of guy who would drop half a billion dollars of his own money on the race."

Cuban had downplayed questions of whether he will seek the presidency in a future election prior to Trump's victory over Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who Cuban backed and was a prominent surrogate for. In September, Cuban shot down the idea at the first presidential debate.

In recent weeks, after laying off of Trump following his electoral victory, Cuban has returned to hammering the president on social media and in TV interviews. Cuban took aim at Trump for his implementation of the travel ban, taking a more openly critical position toward it than any prominent executive.

"I've been crushing POTUS," he announced on Twitter in late January. "He has earned it."