Kevin O’Leary‘s years-long friendship with Mark Cuban can bring tears to his eyes.
In PEOPLE’s exclusive first look at the Shark Tank investor’s appearance on Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?, O’Leary gets emotional as he reflects on how his costar and friend has never failed to showed up for him.
Host Chris Wallace begins by asking O’Leary about his stint in Canadian politics. In 2017, the business man ran to be the head of the nation’s Conservative Party but “dropped out at the last minute” because he couldn’t speak French “well enough.”
“I was leading in the polls, dramatically, until I hit Quebec,” O’Leary recalls. “I’m dyslexic, I’ll never learn French. And it also leads to a story about Mark Cuban that is very important when people pit us against each other, a lot.”
The television personality explains that candidates who lose in political races must “pay back your losses, if you’re a loser in a race at $1,600 per contribution by only Canadian citizens.” He also notes that if candidates fail to pay back their debt in 24 months, they can face prison time.
“I was $2 million in the hole, and I wanted to write the check and just clear the books, and the government said, ‘No, you can’t do that. You’re going to be subject to the laws of the land,’” O’Leary recalls. “So I called up Mark. I said, ‘Mark, I’m in trouble here. I need to hold an event where I can sell a lot of tickets to a lot of people who are going to attend, and I need you to fly up here and be beside me on the stage.’”