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Mark Cuban Reveals He Was Approached By Kamala Harris As Potential VP Pick: 'I'm Not Very Good As The No. 2 Person'

Mark Cuban Reveals He Was Approached By Kamala Harris As Potential VP Pick: 'I'm Not Very Good As The No. 2 Person'

Yahoo14 hours ago

In an alternate timeline, billionaire and investor Mark Cuban could have been Kamala Harris' vice presidential pick.
However, the Shark Tank star said he turned down an offer from the Democratic presidential candidate's campaign for vetting papers, adding that he wouldn't be a great collaborator as the second-in-command.
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'I'm not very good as the No. 2 person. And so, the last thing we need is me telling Kamala, you know, the president, that, 'No, that's a dumb idea,' right? And I'm not real good at the shaking hands and kissing babies,' he told The Bulwark host Tim Miller.
When theorizing how that may or may not have changed the outcome of the 2024 presidential election, Cuban responded that it 'obviously' would have given the Democratic ticket a different vibe, given the contrast he strikes with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
'My personality is completely different than Tim's. My experiences, my backgrounds are completely different. I think I've cut through the sh– more directly. I'm not a politician. And so it would have been different, but it would have been awful,' Cuban maintained. 'She would have fired me within six days.'
When Miller, a former Republican consultant-turned-Never Trumper, said that reality 'would have been better than the present situation,' the former Dallas Mavericks owner conceded, 'Well, yes, that's true.'
As Miller noted, Cuban previously appeared at Harris' rallies and has been vocal against president Donald Trump, his tariff policies and general demeanor, previously endorsing Hillary Clinton in 2016 and calling the current POTUS a 'jagoff.' Cuban has also tossed around the idea of running for president as a Republican, but has described his politics as libertarian and independent in nature.
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Social Security Benefits Are an Estimated 8 Years Away From Being Slashed -- and the Cuts Are Even Bigger Than Initially Forecast
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Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

Social Security Benefits Are an Estimated 8 Years Away From Being Slashed -- and the Cuts Are Even Bigger Than Initially Forecast

Most retirees rely on their Social Security income, to some varied degree, to make ends meet. The 2025 Social Security Board of Trustees Report is calling for an even steeper reduction to retired-worker and survivor benefits come 2033 than was forecast last year. Ongoing demographic shifts are (mostly) responsible for Social Security's financial woes. However, the longer Congress waits to implement reforms, the costlier it'll be on working Americans. The $23,760 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook › Social Security represents more than just a monthly check for most retirees. To many, it's a financial lifeline that surveys and studies have shown they'd struggle to make do without. For 23 consecutive years, national pollster Gallup surveyed retirees to determine how important their Social Security income was to covering their expenses. Every year, no fewer than 80% of respondents noted it was necessary, in some capacity, to cover their costs. A separate analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that Social Security pulled 22 million people above the federal poverty line in 2023, including 16.3 million adults aged 65 and above. If the Social Security program didn't exist, the poverty rate for this group would be nearly four times higher (37.3%, estimated) than it was in 2023 (10.1%). For lawmakers, ensuring the financial health of Social Security should be of paramount importance. But based on the latest Social Security Board of Trustees Report, America's leading retirement program is on anything but stable ground. In January 1940, the Social Security program doled out its very first retired-worker benefit. Since then, the Social Security Board of Trustees has published an annual report intricately detailing how the program generates income, as well as where every dollar in outlays ends up. But what tends to garner even more attention is the Trustees' forecasts of what's to come for Social Security. 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Beginning in 2021, the OASI began outlaying more in benefits than was being collected in income. This outflow from the OASI's asset reserves is expected to grow with each passing year. By 2033, the OASI's asset reserves are projected to be completely exhausted. Before going any further, let's make clear that the OASI doesn't need a penny in asset reserves to remain solvent and continue to pay benefits to eligible recipients. With the lion's share of Social Security income collected from the 12.4% payroll tax on wages and salary, there will always be income to disburse to qualified beneficiaries. But if the OASI's asset reserves are depleted in eight years, as the latest Trustees Report predicts, the current payout schedule, inclusive of COLAs, won't be sustainable. 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Andrew Cuomo wants to be New York's mayor. Do Democrats want him back?
Andrew Cuomo wants to be New York's mayor. Do Democrats want him back?

Washington Post

timean hour ago

  • Washington Post

Andrew Cuomo wants to be New York's mayor. Do Democrats want him back?

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Map: All 250 million acres of public land the Trump budget bill would sell off
Map: All 250 million acres of public land the Trump budget bill would sell off

Fast Company

timean hour ago

  • Fast Company

Map: All 250 million acres of public land the Trump budget bill would sell off

The Senate budget bill—also called the reconciliation bill, or Trump's 'One Beautiful Bill Act'— is making headlines for its drastic cuts to Medicaid, its rollback of clean energy tax credits, and the fact that it would raise the debt ceiling by $5 trillion. It's also threatening to take away millions of acres of public land. Nearly 150 groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for Biological Diversity, and local organizations like Alaska Wilderness League and New Mexico Wild, have urged Senate members to reconsider this 'unprecedented' sell-off of public lands. The Senate budget bill would be a 'fire sale' of America's public lands and waters, Bobby McEnaney, director of land conservation at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement. The bill would force the sale of between 2 million and 3 million acres of public lands from the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, acres that span 11 Western states. (The state of Connecticut is about 3.1 million acres, for comparison). The bill also makes even more public land eligible for sale—more than 250 million acres, including hiking trails, ski resorts, wilderness study areas, national monuments, and critical wildlife migration corridors. New areas would also be opened for oil leasing and offshore drilling under the bill, including in the Gulf of Alaska. If passed, the bill would likely be 'largest single sale of national public lands in modern history,' according to the Wilderness Society. It's a move Senate Republicans are making, multiple groups note, in order to pay for billionaire tax breaks. The bill 'trades ordinary Americans' access to outdoor recreation for a short-term payoff that disproportionately benefits the privileged and well-connected,' the Wilderness Society says. Senator Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah and chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, has also said the bill would create opportunities for housing. But nature organizations say it would do no such thing—and that it would bring more harm to the public. 'There is no provision to prevent lands sold under Lee's bill from being developed into high-end vacation homes, Airbnbs, or luxury housing projects,' the letter signed by dozens of organizations reads. Selling these lands, they add, 'threatens public access, undermines responsible land management, puts environmental values, cultural resources, and endangered species at risk along with clean drinking water for 60 million Americans and betrays the public's trust.' That 250 million acres of public lands are at risk can be hard to visualize. The Wilderness Society made an interactive map, showing both the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service lands the bill makes eligible for sale. The map illustrates how those 250 million acres span 119 congressional districts, reaching all the way from Alaska down through the Western United States, and over past the Rocky Mountains. 'This bill would lead to a wave of irreversible extraction that will rob future generations of public access to lands and waters that belong to all of us—just to bankroll tax cuts for the superrich,' McEnaney said in his statement. 'As currently proposed, Americans will soon lose permanent access to the public lands close to home, their favorite trails, their parks, and their favorite recreation areas. Once these lands are sold, and the no trespassing signs go up, there will be no going back.'

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