Charles Barkley and Mark Cuban believe they can win the White House, the only question is who will have to settle for being vice president.
Cuban considered running for president as an independent candidate in 2020. Despite his fame and willingness to be vocal on politics, however, the former majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks has repeatedly denied having any interest in running for office. But maybe that’s only because he never thought about running for office alongside Charles Barkley.
On the latest episode of The Steam Room, Ernie Johnson and Barkley were joined by Cuban. And during the interview, Johnson asked Cuban whether being on the same ticket as the beloved NBA analyst would pique his interest in running for president.
“Yes, absolutely,” Cuban said.
“We’d win,” Barkley added definitively. “We’d definitely win.”
“Yes, we would win running away,” Cuban said as his potential running mate echoed the sentiment. “No question about it.”
As Democrats reconvene after losing the 2024 election, their 2028 primary is starting to shape up with Charles Barkley, Mark Cuban and Stephen A. Smith expressing interest. Barkley and Cuban answered the question of whether they could win the election, but they didn’t address the harder question of who gets to be president. Cuban engages with the political class more often, but Barkley has the rare skill of being able to weigh in on issues while remaining popular with people from both parties.
Cuban considered getting on the ballot in 2020 and Barkley once gave serious thought to running for governor of Alabama in 2014. So while we can confidently predict Barkley and Cuban won’t be on the ticket for the Democratic Party in 2028, it’s not like we haven’t seen similarly qualified candidates before.
