“Shark Tank’s” Kevin O’Leary (a.k.a. Mr. Wonderful) is a bit of a political animal too.
The Canadian entrepreneur campaigned to be the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada in 2017, and was the frontrunner most of the time, but dropped out a month before the election. He eventually would’ve faced off against Justin Trudeau for Prime Minister of Canada had he won.
Anyone that’s watched “Shark Tank” knows that O’Leary has a Trumpian element to his personality, and was even called the “Donald Trump of Canada” during his brief bid to head the Conservative Party. As one writer quipped, “Kevin O’Leary’s worship of money makes Donald Trump look like Jesus Christ flipping tables in the temple.” And speaking of money, he can’t heap enough praise on the spectacular Trump economy.
In an interview with Buck Sexton on “Hill.TV,” O’Leary told him “the reduction of regulations has been remarkable in how it has accelerated small business. These things are quietly being changed, and really I credit the administration for doing this. They’re making it easier to run a small business in pretty well every state I’m involved in. So that’s working.” The number of pages in the Federal Register his its lowest in a quarter century after Trump’s first year in office, with roughly 62,000 pages. The year prior, it was over 97,110.
O’Leary also cautioned people to pay attention to reality rather than the rhetoric coming out of Washington and the media. “The heartland of America is doing something else while we’re going nuts on the East Coast and the West Coast. They don’t listen to any of this stuff,” O’Leary said. “They’re not tuned in to Washington. They don’t care about all this noise. They’re looking at their businesses and watching a slow change in enhanced growth that they haven’t seen in 20 years.”
No kidding.
A video of the exchange can be viewed on The Hill’s website, which unfortunately appears to have made the footage impossible to share on different websites (like ours).
When it comes to the strength of the American economy under Trump, O’Leary wasn’t being hyperbolic. The labor market is so strong right now that the greatest problem employers report facing is an inability to hire as many people as they want. (RELATED: This is Just How Ridiculously Strong Trump’s Economy Is).
When it comes to Trump’s economic approval rating, a poll last month found that 51 percent approve, with 36 percent disapproving. It’s interesting to contrast Trump’s approval on individual issues to his overall approval because he usually polls better on specific issues. One explanation for that could be that the public doesn’t like Trump as a person, but view his individual policies more favorably.
With the unemployment rate having marched past the lowest point in half a century, it’s important to never forget that Hillary Clinton predicted that the Trump tax cuts would kill 3.5 million jobs. (RELATED: Hillary Predicted Trump Tax Cuts Would Kill 3.5 Million Jobs).
Oops.
