Lets Revisit The Soul-Crushing Letter Donald Trump Sent Mark Cuban After His Show ‘The Benefactor’ Failed In 2004

Donald Trump and Mark Cuban loathe each other. Although it shouldn’t be surprising that two mega-rich egotistical maniacs who love the spotlight don’t see eye to eye, the history the two share is rockier than a Kardashian marriage.

But things haven’t always been so tense between the two. When Trump announced he was running for President last year, Cuban supported the decision, calling it “probably the best thing to happen to politics in a long long time” and praised Trump for “giving honest answers rather than prepared answers.”

Since then, he sparred with Trump on social media, claiming he would crush him if he ran for president and likened Trump to “the guy at the bar who will say anything to get laid. That’s Donald Trump right now. But it’s all of us who are going to get fucked.” Cuban, now a Clinton supporter, called Trump “batshit crazy” at a rally later in the summer and attached himself to the #NeverTrump hashtag in July.

Trump then said that Cuban was “not smart to understand what we are doing” in an interview with Fox News. Cuban shot back on Twitter by challenging him to discuss his economic and tax policy proposals for four hours with him, sweetening the deal by offering Trump $10 million for the interview.

The genesis of their feud can be traced back to 2004, when Donald Trump sent Cuban a hilariously scathing letter after the failure of his show The Benefactor. NBC canceled the show because it was too similar to Trump’s The Apprentice program. Trump enjoyed this. Trump enjoyed this very much.

 

Transcript of the letter:

‘I am truly sorry to hear that your show has been cancelled for lack of ratings,’ he read. ‘When I initially called you to congratulate you on The Benefactor — little did you or I realize how disastrous and embarrassing it would turn out to be for you.

If you ever decide to do another show, please call me and I will be happy to lend a helping hand.

‘With best wishes,  Sincerely, Donald Trump.’

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I don’t know much, but I know this is the first thing Mark Cuban thinks about every morning he wakes up.

Matt Keohan Avatar
Matt’s love of writing was born during a sixth grade assembly when it was announced that his essay titled “Why Drugs Are Bad” had taken first prize in D.A.R.E.’s grade-wide contest. The anti-drug people gave him a $50 savings bond for his brave contribution to crime-fighting, and upon the bond’s maturity 10 years later, he used it to buy his very first bag of marijuana.