The Media Research Center has long been a fan of “Shark Tank” celebrity Kevin O’Leary because of his penchant for spouting right-wing talking points. For instance:
- ‘Shark Tank’s’ Kevin O’Leary Rips Minimum Wage ‘Insanity’
- Shark Tank Star Destroys Sanders’ $15 Minimum Wage Proposal
- WATCH: Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary RIPS Biden’s Anti-Fracking Comments on CNBC
- WATCH: Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary Slams Absurd Econ Lockdown Standards
- WATCH: Kevin O’Leary Says Censorship Is Why Twitter Is at Bottom of Dante’s ‘Hell’
- WATCH: Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary Takes a Sledgehammer to Biden’s ‘Highly Inflationary’ Inflation Bill
- WATCH: Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary Rips AOC for ‘Killing’ Jobs in New York
- ‘Let It Fail’: Shark Tank’s O’Leary Slams Silicon Valley Bank’s Government Bailout
- ‘RAGE in America!’ Kevin O’Leary’s Dire Warning to Woke Corporations
The MRC really ramped up its love for O’Leary this year. Tim Graham wrote in a Jan. 13 post:
Bonchie at RedState pointed out that CNN host Laura Coates disturbed her Trump-loathing audience by bringing on Shark Tank judge and investor Kevin O’Leary late on Thursday night to deconstruct what New York’s Democrat Attorney General Letitia James is trying to accomplish in her civil fraud trial against Donald Trump. He said O’Leary ” took James to the cleaners with perhaps the most concise and easy-to-understand takedown of her case I’ve seen.”
[…]Coates tried to argue that even if O’Leary is right, does “overvaluing” properties deprive the government of tax revenue? O’Leary just stuck to his point that if this is fraud, then every real estate developer is guilty. “I think it’s going to be very, very hard to make this stick in reality later. This is not — of all the things that Trump’s being accused of and being litigated for and indicted for, this is not his problem. This is not his problem. He’s got much worse problems than this. This is, for real estate developers, this is a joke.”
But as Jon Stewart pointed out, O’Leary is arguing that real estate developers be allowed to lie to people without consequence in order to pad their wallets when others are punished for dishonestly overestimating their income and O’Leary himself has lashed out at “Shark Tank” contestants for overvaluing their businesses. Also, his claim of Trump’s deception being a victimless crime is false because the state was deprived of tax revenue due to such dishonesty.
Joseph Vazquez gushed over O’Leary repeating that tone-deaf defense of Trump again in a Feb. 19 post:
One of ABC’s legendary Shark Tank investors dismantled the logic behind a radical judge’s asinine ruling against former President Donald Trump.
Kevin O’Leary — a.k.a “Mr. Wonderful” — called the ruling by leftist New York Supreme Court judge Arthur Engoron an egregious “assault on the 11th sector of the S&P 500, which is real estate” during the Feb. 18 edition of Fox & Friends Weekend. Engoron fined Trump $355 million for allegedly inflating his assets and banned him from being an officer in any New York-based corporation for three years, despite “nobody” losing money, as The Wall Street Journal editorial board pointed out. O’Leary analyzed the whole event as an overexaggerated demonization of a common practice within the corporate world when real estate developers haggle with banks in order to get loans. “This is not about Trump anymore,” O’Leary concluded. “If you’re a developer and you see this happen in the state of New York, why would you take the risk to put up this much money and have a judge arbitrarily decide that you are in some form of breach of fraud when no damages occurred at all?” In O’Leary’s view, “This is crazy!”
[…]O’Leary further noted that this politburo-styled prosecution has changed his perspective on what’s the worst state in America to do business:
This is about the competition of states. I thought before this judgment that the number one loser state in America was California, which is basically putting itself out of business slowly and surely. But after this judgment, I’m going to make New York the number one loser state, followed by California, then Massachusetts, New Jersey, Michigan. These are places where taxes are not competitive.
O’Leary concluded that Engoron’s ruling was eventually going to be overturned on appeal because “this is so damaging to business in New York” and “it makes no sense.”
Vazquez served as O’Leary’s servile stenographer again the next day:
Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary — a.k.a. “Mr. Wonderful” — ripped CNN for pathetically attempting to justify a radical New York judge’s bonkers ruling against former President Donald Trump.
Leftist CNN anchor Laura Coates appeared giddy as she touted the $355 million fine New York Supreme court judge Arthur Engoron slapped on Trump for allegedly inflating his assets to lenders, despite nobody losing money. O’Leary argued during the Feb. 19 edition of Laura Coates Live that this was a “victimless crime” due to the fact that Trump did nothing that was outside of the typical haggling that goes on between real estate developers and banks across the country. Coates got perturbed, cut O’Leary off mid-sentence and listed the alleged financial crimes Trump was charged with. “I take it your point is that these should not have been prosecuted,” Coates responded. O’Leary wouldn’t budge: “My point is there’s never been a case like this in 75 years.” O’Leary summarized that what Trump was being raked over the coals for by an activist judge with an axe to grind has been “done by every real estate developer everywhere on earth in every city. This has never, ever been prosecuted.”
Coates tried pushing back by trying to maneuver O’Leary with a “gotcha!” question: “Wouldn’t there be many companies who would not want to do business or loan money to people like yourself or investors if they know that they could get away with fraud and there’s no recourse to protect them?”
O’Leary didn’t take the bait and shot back by giving Coates a basic lesson in the mechanics of banking. “Excuse me, what fraud? This is not about Trump anymore. When you get a developer that builds a building and he says it’s worth $400 million and he wants to borrow $200 million from a bank — which happens every day, everywhere on earth, including every American city” O’Leary stated. He continued by noting that every developer is an entrepreneur and naturally shines “the light on their building and they say it’s worth $400 million. The bank does its own due diligence — as was done in [Trump’s] case — because they’re good at it, the banks are very good — and they say, ‘No, it’s worth $300 million. We’re only going to loan you $150 million.’ That haggling has gone on for decades. That’s how it works.”
Vazquez failed to explain in either article why rich real estate developers like Trump and O’Leary should be able to get away with lying when much poorer people do not get that privilege.
It was Tom Olohan’s turn to slobber over O’Leary in a March 20 post:
Where is the American Dream still alive despite President Joe Biden’s decrepit economy? According to Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary, aka “Mr. Wonderful,” those seeking opportunity should look to several dynamic red states.
O’Leary responded to a segment of Americans discussing the American Dream and the struggling American economy under Joe Biden during the March 18 edition of The Story With Martha MacCallum. When Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum suggested that O’Leary believed the American Dream was alive in “certain parts of the country” and certain states, O’Leary heaped praise on several red states. “I think you have to look at the governor of each state setting the tone. They are the CEO of the state, the senators are important, but the governors are the CEO of the state so they set the policy up. So the states I’m doing business in now, Montana, Oklahoma, North Dakota, West Virginia; they have very stable policy.”
[…] [Oklahoma] Governor [Kevin] Stitt responded to O’Leary’s praise in a post on X, writing, “Kevin O’Leary gets it. Oklahoma is the most business-friendly state in the nation.”
Olohan didn’t mention that Oklahoma is less than friendly to anyone who’s not a right-wing heterosexual. Just ask Nex Benedict.