RUSH: Grab the Brian Williams bites talking to a Cuban woman in Havana. NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams despaired last night over what an influx of American tourists would mean to the revolution in Cuba. You know, he’s not the first. Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington, also expressed concern, remember? Very, very worried what’s gonna happen to the beautiful Cuban countryside and the beautiful Cuban skyline in Havana once these evil American tourists and their evil American dollars show up. Oh, my God, it’s gonna destroy the revolution.
I know Brian Williams. I remember running into Brian Williams back in the old days when MSNBC had some integrity and quality, back when I used to appear on it. I’d go over there when it was in Fort Lee. Brian Williams was the lead news guy at MSNBC, seven o’clock news hour, the anchor, he did the hourly newscast, they took breaks between the shows. This was back when Chris Matthews was still sane. I’d go into Brian Williams’ office and I’d talk to him.
He was one of the funniest guys that you’d ever run into. I don’t know what’s happened. I don’t know whether this is all an act just to fit in with the bosses at NBC, but this is just incredible. Brian Williams worrying that US dollars and US tourists are going to destroy Cuba because they’re gonna get rid of the ’57 Chevies. The revolution’s logo is a ’57 Chevy or a ’58 Ford, and American tourists are gonna destroy that.
Williams was talking with a 26-year-old Cuban woman, said to have a biology degree, and works as a freelance producer. Let’s just go to the sound bites. Brian Williams talking to Laura Mendi about the new, more open relations between the US and Cuba. We have two sound bites. This is the second one first.
WILLIAMS: When Americans are here and planes and hotels and — and the cars are 2015 cars and not 1958 cars, what happens to the revolution?
MENDI: When you talk about Cuba, you don’t have to talk about the revolution. People have been driving it for years and years, but the revolution are something is a moment, then it’s done. Now we’re having a new revolution. Americans coming to Cuba is really a revolution for the country.
WILLIAMS: So that billboard I just passed on the way from the airport with young Fidel Castro saying, “The revolution lives on,” that’s what you mean, we’re living in it now?
MENDI: We’re living in it now.
RUSH: The revolution has been over for 50 years. The revolution happened, and then the decline of the country began.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Seriously folks, what does it say about people who go to a Third World country where the average monthly income is a couple of dollars, maybe daily income is a couple of bucks, I’m talking about Cuba. It is a destitute Third World country. What does it say about the media who go down there and worry what American commerce is gonna do to this place?
It’s a Third World paradise, it’s a sinkhole, it’s a Third World paradise, and American commerce is gonna destroy it? This idea, the revolution? The revolution lasted for a year or two, it was over, and ever since Castro won the country’s been in decline. Viva la revolucion. It’s absurd, all of this. Here is the first sound bite. This is Brian Williams and Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington.
WILLIAMS: Andrea, I have to say, given the flight we both took here today, given the sense of moment about this, it didn’t feel like a big moment to be honest. The assistant secretary went down the air stairs first, then her assistant. That left me the third American walking down the stairs, part of no delegation. I didn’t have time to reach for my phone. That I know of there’s no photo of them setting foot and arriving.
MITCHELL: We asked to take pictures, but in fact they did not want pictures.
WILLIAMS: All I know is we witnessed something here today after a long night’s journey that started when the president finished last night in Washington.
RUSH: So we have a news story about journalists arriving in Cuba, and sadly there were no pictures of it. Gee, poor planning. All I know is, Andrea, that we witnessed something here today after a long night’s journey that started when the president finished last night in Washington. Yeah, we got to Cuba, and we’re now obsessed with how American commerce is going to destroy it. It’s one of those days, folks, where it’s all out in the open. You just have to listen to it, accept it for what it is, and learn who these people really are and what they’re not and what they don’t do, and they don’t report the news, clearly.
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