John Rich Doubles Down on Mark Cuban Comments
John Rich (L) speaks to the media in front of the West Wing of the White House on October 11, 2018 in Washington, DC. (R) Mark Cuban attends "Shark Tank" during the PaleyFest NY 2023 at Paley Museum on October 16, 2023 in New York City. The pair have been arguing about politics on X, formerly Twitter.
Country singer John Rich is not backing down after slamming billionaire Mark Cuban.
The pair got into a spat on X, formerly Twitter, when Cuban posted about the increase of retail investors— people who are nonprofessional stock traders.
Rich accused Cuban of not being in touch with real people, but the latter retaliated by questioning the country star's knowledge on the issue.
Cuban told Newsweek after the original spat that there was "no reason to respond any further to him."
However, over the weekend the pair returned to their online sparring, debating issues such as politics, student loans, inflation and government spending.
Rich shared his thoughts on what driving up inflation, which included "funding foreign wars to the tune of hundreds of billions, along with bailing out student debt and a myriad of other spending sprees as well as the cost that goes along with an open border that has resulted in millions of people flooding into our country who rely on the taxpayer to shoulder their expenses, has devalued the dollar to a critical level."
The country singer, who is a Republican and a Donald Trump fan, said the former president "brokered peace, and will again."
"He will close the border. He will re-engage the energy sector instead of draining the Strategic Oil Reserve to temporarily lower gas prices leading into an election, and so on and so forth. Inflation was at 1.4% when DJT left office," Rich wrote.
"No getting around that. Wages can never keep up with inflation of this scale, nor with the rising interest rates. Mark, regular income families cannot continue with this current equation. This is not an opinion, and it's not "marketing" it's just reality."
He concluded by writing, "Why do you think low income families are shifting to Trump in record numbers? Again, Joe [Biden] will lose because PAIN is the great unifier. I do appreciate this dialogue with you, even though we don't agree."
Newsweek contacted Rich's representatives by email for comment.
Cuban reposted Rich's comment, adding his own thoughts and links to articles and research to back up his claims.
In response to Rich's comments about funding Ukraine in its defense against Russia, Cuban wrote: "Your comment John also raises another question. What is the life of an American soldier worth ? By supporting Ukraine even Republicans believe we can avoid having to send troops to support NATO. Which could lead to our soldiers dying. What do you think ?"
Cuban added about forgiving student debt: "A big chunk of those borrowers were because of predatory loans at BS schools that the former administration actually supported."
In response to Rich's comment about "spending sprees", Cuban told him:
"The deficit has grown now and during your guy's term [Trump]. What makes you think he won't continue to grow the deficit as he did before."
Cuban admitted to agreeing with Rich about border policy but told the singer his "numbers don't add up," and that he was wrong about the value of the dollar because it was actually "near 20 year highs."
When it came to Rich's claims about Trump's policy on inflation, Cuban asked him to detail his thoughts on the matter.
"What started the increase in rates ? How will he get the rates down ? Please give specifics. I have yet to hear him give any details," Cuban wrote on X.
"While I appreciate your trying to look out for those who are struggling, the numbers across the entire country don't agree with you. Different areas of the country have different experiences. Different cities have different experiences. I don't agree that it helps anything to generalize.'
"I know it's not possible to never generalize. But I've tried to show you data that supported my positions Thanks !"
Cuban concluded by writing: "If you have specific data, I'm happy to read it."
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