RUSH: Marco Rubio. In reaction to our last caller who thinks that lifting the embargo is good — by the way, Rand Paul has come out in support of it. Well, I’m just telling you, Rand Paul has distanced himself — I think once Rand Paul saw Jeb come out against this, this is Republican presidential politics, Rand Paul said, “A-ha, I got an opportunity here to stake out a different position than Jeb.” So I think that’s what that is about. I’m not saying that Rand Paul doesn’t really mean it. I’m just saying, okay, so Jeb’s come out against the embargo, or the normalization, the embargo being lifted, so Rand Paul, “A-ha, I can go someplace that Jeb isn’t.” Which is an attractive thing.
“Marco Rubio said a top State Department official was ‘dishonest’ about the Obama administration’s plans to change its policy on Cuba. Tony Blinken, the newly confirmed deputy secretary of State, told the Florida senator at his confirmation hearing in November that the administration would not unilaterally change its Cuba policy without ‘full consultation’ with Congress.”
So this newly confirmed deputy secretary of state in these confirmation hearings promised Rubio and the people in the community, “Oh, no, no, no, no. We would never unilaterally change our policy with Cuba. Not without consulting you first, Senator.” And of course the consultation didn’t happen. They lied. Rubio’s out telling the story. Blinkin was confirmed by the Senate Tuesday. Blinkin gets confirmed and Obama makes the move. Rubio told the Weekly Standard, “We was dishonest with us. He was clearly evasive.” And it was on Wednesday after Blinkin is confirmed on Tuesday that Obama announces the move on Cuba.
Here are the audio sound bites. November 19, 2014, Senate committee on foreign relations hearing on the Blinkin nomination deputy secretary of state. Rubio said: “Do you anticipate during the rest of the President’s term that there will be any unilateral change or any change in US sanctions or conditions against Cuba absent them meeting those conditions of democracy, human rights, and so forth, the things outlined in that legislation?”
BLINKIN: Anything that in the future might be done on Cuba would be done in full consultation with the real meaning of the word consultation that I just alluded to with this committee.
RUSH: Well, he lied. But here, this is typical liberal qualification. (imitating Blinkin) “Well, anything in the future that might be done on Cuba would be done in full consultation with the real meaning of the word consultation that I just alluded with this committee.” So I guess he’s got a different definition of consultation. Consultation is Obama will consult with himself and decide to do it, and that means they’ve consulted. But Rubio is pointing out, “Hey, I was lied to. This guy lied,” and he was confirmed Tuesday, and then Wednesday — (laughing)
Rubio said, “There’s been some chatter — and I understand some of it is just chatter, as happens in this town — that somehow over the next couple of years, at the end of his term, the president may seek to make some changes, perhaps even unilaterally, towards US sanctions and policy towards Cuba. Is that being contemplated right now, Mr. Blinkin? Is that being contemplated absent real democratic opening?”
So let me translate. Rubio says: Okay, you say you will not unilaterally change anything on Cuba policy without consulting us. Okay, how about the next two years? Are there any plans to normalize relations with Cuba without requiring Cuba to make any concessions, are you planning on doing anything in the next two years?
BLINKIN: It depends on Cuba and the actions that they take. And what we’ve seen, as I just alluded to, are actions in exactly the wrong direction. The detentions, the harassment. They talk about wanting to improve relations.
RUBIO: I have not heard you say point-blank that, absent democratic openings, we’re not gonna see actions on the part of this administration to weaken the current embargo and sanctions against Cuba.
BLINKIN: Unless Cuba is able to demonstrate that it is taking meaningful steps to move forward, I don’t see how you move forward in the relationship.
RUSH: That’s just last month, folks. (laughing) That’s just last month. Now, what step did Cuba make? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on, there’s been a prisoner exchange here. We got back our guy, Gross. And, by the way, Gross was being tortured. You know this Gross guy lost, in five years, like a hundred pounds? He lost teeth, blind in one eye, but there’s a picture, you may have this by now, depending how much you surf the web, there’s a picture of Gross in his lawyer’s office upon arriving home from Cuba.
There’s a picture in his lawyer’s office, he’s there with a babe and two people in the lawyer’s office and Gross and they’re poring over documents and doing things to make it look official, and right there on the wall, in the lawyer’s office is a picture of Che Guevara. In Gross’ lawyer’s office. Now, Che Guevara is only a mass murderer, but he’s a hip mass murderer ’cause he looks cool and hip. He wore the rebel hat and had the beard, and he looked good in a Bond movie. He’s just perfect. Hollywood loves Che Guevara, mass murderer, an enforcer for Castro. And he’s held in honor in the office of this Gross guy’s law firm.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: What would a program on embargoes and foreign policy and all that be without John Kerry being part of it, folks? The haughty John Kerry, who once served in Vietnam, held a press conference yesterday in Washington and had this to say about the new policy with Cuba.
KERRY: There’s no other country in the world to which we have closed our lives for as long as we have closed them to Cuba.
RUSH: See?
KERRY: The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago.
RUSH: Right.
KERRY: And the wall separating Americans and Cubans has yet to come down.
RUSH: Holy smokes!
KERRY: Not only has this policy failed to advance America’s goals, it has actually isolated the United States, instead of isolating Cuba.
RUSH: Did you hear that? So we have just had the US embargo made morally equivalent with the Berlin Wall. This is how these people think, folks. The Berlin Wall was built to keep people from escaping a communist Regime, and the US embargo has just been compared to that by John Kerry, who served in Vietnam. And the US embargo did the exact same thing that the Berlin Wall did. It closed off and isolated the United States. It didn’t isolate Cuba. It isolated us. So our embargo only hurt us because so much that Cuba has to offer was denied us. It is convoluted, perverted thinking, but it stands as dominant reason with this crowd.
Here’s Sylvia in Miami. Hi, Sylvia. I’m glad you called. It’s great to have you on the program. Hello.
CALLER: Hi there. I’m very, very sad by what’s happened here, and I just can’t believe the way that these elected officials are talking about an issue that obviously they know nothing about. They’re being very naive or they’ve finally joined the rest of the world in making it about making money and not about helping the people in Cuba.
RUSH: Well, yeah, that’s probably true. I think this crowd very obviously blames America for the plight of the Cuban people, that’s what John Kerry just said, and your take on it is I think pretty right on in that regard. We are hurting the Cuban people.
CALLER: Absolutely. And I wanted to say something. Yesterday when I was hearing the president talk about, you know, we’ve been doing this for 50-something years, actually, Cuba does not have an embargo in the sense of a worldwide embargo. When apartheid ended in South Africa, you know what happened there? We ain’t gonna pay some city happened there, where the world got together and said there’s no way we’re giving them a dime —
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: — as long as there is oppression going on with the people.
RUSH: That’s right.
CALLER: That never happened in Cuba. So the only country that kind of was still making a point out of the atrocities happening in Cuba was this one.
RUSH: Hey, that’s another great point. You want me to explain it to you?
CALLER: Please do.
RUSH: Okay, the people being oppressed in South Africa were communists, African National Congress and Mandela’s bunch, they were communists, and the South African government was not. The South African government was suppressing and oppressing a bunch of communists. It was intolerable. They happened to be black. That made it even worse. In Cuba, the oppressors are the communists, so it’s okay.
CALLER: Absolutely.
RUSH: Well, that’s the difference. You wonder why is the world not joining to help liberate the people of Cuba? Because they’re not gonna align against a communist dictatorship.
CALLER: There’s not even an embarrassment. Like when I see celebrities in Cuba frolicking in the sand, taking pictures, they don’t even run away from the photographers. They’re happy to be there. There’s nothing wrong with us being there. Yet, had they done that back when apartheid was going on in South Africa, they would have been boycotted immediately. And it’s a shame. I mean, I was born in this country, my parents are Cuban, and it really hurts to see, how, for whatever reason, the plight of Cuba has never had that sex appeal where the rest of the world can join in — I mean, yesterday I didn’t even know what to think when I was hearing the president speak.
RUSH: Because Castro has always been a figure of great mystery and intrigue. People have not really had any animosity, the people you’re talking about, have not had any animosity toward Castro. These Hollywood types you talk about, look, it’s just more of the samefrom people who believe that America’s the problem. So you go down and frolic on the beaches of Cuba, and you welcome the photographers and the paparazzi because what you’re doing is thumbing your nose at America. And that makes all the hassle worthwhile.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Che Guevara, you know what he did? He made bombs out of pina coladas. I mean, how low is that? Make a bomb out of a pina colada, or a chocolate sundae. I saw it in a movie. Blew people up that way.