CNN‘s late night fight club show descended into yet another bust-up last night when Democrat Bakari Sellers tried to lecture Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary about how the economy works.
Sellers, a politician-turned-pundit from South Carolina, was a guest on Abby Philip’s NewsNight along with DailyMail.com columnist O’Leary and others.
He was complaining about Elon Musk and Trump’s slicing of the Departments of Education and Agriculture. O’Leary, a proponent of the cuts, said they needed to go further to trim more fat from the bloated government to make it more effective.
That’s when Sellers offered up a lesson in economy to the investor, who is worth some $400million.
‘Let me just say, can I explain to you,’ he said.
O’Leary fired back: ‘You need to explain it to me? I know how it works.’
Responding to what was evidently disbelief from the businessman, Sellers said: ‘But no, you don’t.’
As the former rep geared-up for what appeared to be a longwinded lecture, O’Leary again cut in.
‘I do, I’ve done it multiple times,’ he said, referring to his business experience.
Kevin O’Leary clashed with Bakari Sellers during a conversation about the economy on CNN NewsNight Tuesday, after the US Department of Agriculture’s decision to do away with programs that provided $1 billion in funding for school lunches
A furious Sellers led the charge of an almost full panel backlash.
‘You cannot run everyday government the same way you run [the private sector!] he fumed.
‘This is worse than the private sector,’ O’Leary interrupted again. ‘[This is] fat dripping-with-waste government.’
The cuts seen from the USDA Tuesday align with The Trump Administration’s attempt to cut federal spending, with the president expected to sign of an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education sometime this week.
The argument between Sellers and O’Leary was sparked when the latter called for even deeper cuts, while mentioning Elon Musk’s DOGE.
‘This issue is not going to go away because it’s very contentious, but when you cut in any organization, government or private, it’s very demoralizing, the Montreal-born entrepreneur said.
‘It’s traumatic, and it gets lots of bad press as we’re doing right now,’ he went on, before showing some of the business sense that got him to the position he’s in today.
‘But that’s why you cut 20 percent more. I think Elon is not cutting enough. Cut 20 percent more. Now get your spreadsheet out. These are the names.
The panel then fought with O’Leary’s assertion that bad educators are to blame for kids failing in some schools
‘Whack everybody and then 20 percent more – as we do in the private sector every day and have done for 100 years.
‘Demoralization only happens once.’
The panel then fought with O’Leary’s assertion that bad educators are to blame for kids failing in some schools.
Sellers and the other liberal-leaning guests fumed that it was because they are hungry.
‘My whole career was in education,’ O’Leary said at a point, as other panelists spoke over him.
‘So, like… no, no, no… let me finish,’ Sellers stammered, amid growing fears of a recession.
Often hailed as Canada’s business equivalent of Trump, O’Leary is the co-founder and Chairman of O’Leary Funds and the co-founder of Softkey.
The latter was a software company acquired by Mattel in 1999 – a sale that made O’Leary a multimillionaire. It was valued at a whopping $3.5 billion.
Trump with DOGE lieutenant Elon Musk at the White House yesterday. Hundreds more federal workers were laid off yesterday
In 2017, he campaigned to be the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, but dropped out due to a lack of support.
In 2017, he described hypothetical trade negotiations between Trump and then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as ‘Godzilla versus Bambi’ – showing his support for the conservative.
During last year’s election, he engaged in heavy criticism of Democratic candidate Kamala Harris – largely due to her plan to increase corporate taxes.
Following Trump’s win, O’Leary said he was very happy with the outcome – and that he was ‘very proud of the work I did’ during the campaign.
