'I appreciate his openness to it': Hillary Clinton expresses interest in Mark Cuban as her running mate

Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton

(Screenshot/NBC)
Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton responded Sunday to Mark Cuban's suggestion that he'd be open to serving as her running mate, and she seemed more than open to the idea.

"I think we should look widely and broadly," she told Chuck Todd on NBC's "Meet the Press." "It's not just people in elective office. It is successful businesspeople. I am very interested in that. And I appreciate his openness to it."

The Democratic frontrunner said she's "absolutely" intending to look "far and wide" to find a potential vice president — and took a shot a presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump while doing so.

"I think that is the best way to find somebody who can really capture what's needed in the country, and businesspeople have, especially successful businesspeople who are really successful as opposed to pretend successful, I think have a lot to offer," Clinton said.

On the same Sunday program, Cuban indicated his willingness to serve as Clinton's vice president if asked.

Todd mentioned that Cuban has previously joked about being willing to serve on Clinton's ticket as long as he could "throw bombs" at Trump. So Todd asked if he'd consider should the Democratic frontrunner make the proposition.

"Absolutely," he said. "But the key would be that she'd have to go more to center."

"I like the fact that [Secretary] Clinton has thought-out proposals," he continued. "That's a good thing because at least we get to see exactly where she stands."

Mark Cuban
Mark Cuban

(Screenshot/NBC)
Mark Cuban.

Cuban said that he thinks Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator battling Clinton for the Democratic nomination, has "dragged her a little bit too far to the left" on economic issues.

"If she's willing to listen, if she's willing to, you know, hear other sides of things, then I'm wide open to discussing it," he said.

Last weekend, The Washington Post reported that Republican operatives who remain opposed to presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump gauged Cuban's interest in running as a third-party or independent candidate. He later said that it was an "impossible" proposition.

"Look, it was just an email through one of my associates and it was ... a quick response of no," Cuban told CNN's Erin Burnett earlier this week. "It's impossible for it to work."

"There's not enough time to get on the ballot," he continued. "The hurdles are just too great. It was a ridiculous effort, so I passed."

Cuban, the brash billionaire business mogul and owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, also told Burnett that he was not completely sure whom he'd be voting for in the fall.