>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made on a visit to Cuba.

Two congressional Democrats recently toured Cuba to get a better sense of how American sanctions were affecting the Cuban people, and to assess what an American military action might do.

Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal and Congressman Jonathan Jackson wrote a piece for The New York Times in which they said, quote, touring a Cuban hospital.

We saw women in the final days of their pregnancies, trudging up flights of stairs.

The elevators inoperable without power.

The hospital staff members struggled to get to work without fuel for their cars during blackouts, doctors sometimes have to manually pump ventilators to keep babies alive.

As members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, we spent five days in Cuba in April to better understand the humanitarian impacts of America's months long energy blockade of the island.

We came away shocked by the inhumane effects of the policy, whose goal appears to be strangling the economy until the Cuban people are brought to ruin and the country is available.

As President Trump put it, for the taking.

End quote.

In fact, President Trump has said that Cuba is next on his list of international targets for military strikes or wars.

And we're going to hear what he said about that coming up.

He has joked that the United States could pick off Cuba on its way back from Iran.

But the congressional Democrats who toured Cuba warn, quote, further destruction in Cuba, including military action, would lead only to greater economic collapse and more Cubans fleeing the island, end quote.

So what do Cubans want?

There are some parallels to the struggles of the Venezuelan people and the Iranian people.

We're talking about populations who largely have despised their own leadership and have suffered under brutal repression.

Is a military strike the right course of action?

How about another war or really a regime change operation?

It would be.

My guest this hour are here to discuss it from their perspectives.

Jason Barber, a site manager for the International Plaza with the Ibero-American Development Corporation, and Jason's mother and grandparents immigrated from Cuba.

Nice to see you.

Thank you for being back here.

Thank you.

Luis Martinez is a management consultant.

He's a former candidate for New York State Senate, and he was born in Cuba, grew up in Cuba until the age of 12 until coming to the United States.

Nice to see you back here.

Gracias.

So if we could hear Rob, we got that sound with Trump.

Can we start with that?

Let's listen to President Trump at a recent event.

Really kind of joking about picking off Cuba, as he says.

>> An architect who's really talented has done a lot of work for him.

He's got a flair, beautiful Hispanic flair in particular, and he comes from originally a place called Cuba, which we will be taking over almost immediately.

Now, Cuba's Cuba's got problems.

We'll finish one first.

I like to finish a job on the way back from what we'll do on the way back from Iran, we'll have one of our big.

Maybe the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, the biggest in the world, will have that come in.

Stop about 100 yards offshore, and they'll say, thank you very much.

We give up.

>> That's President Trump.

So let's listen to Secretary of State Rubio, and then we'll listen to the congresswoman as well, who recently toured Cuba.

This is Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the White House at a recent event talking about Cuba.

>> But the bottom line is their economy doesn't work.

It's a nonfunctional economy.

It's an economy that has survived for 40.

That revolution, it's not even a revolution.

That thing they have has survived on subsidies from the Soviet Union and now from Venezuela.

They don't get subsidies anymore.

So they're in a lot of trouble.

And the people in charge are they don't know how to fix it.

So they have to get new people in charge.

>> Now, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal was one of the members of that congressional delegation, and I want to listen to some of what she had to say more about her trip.

>> In January.

Um, Trump issued an executive order threatening tariffs on any countries supplying fuel to Cuba.

This was this January, just a few months ago.

And oil shipments from Venezuela, that's where Cuba had been getting its oil were halted after the US operations to kidnap Nicolas Maduro.

Since January, only one Russian tanker of oil has made it to Cuba.

In fact, it landed just a couple of days before I landed and one tanker has enough oil, basically, for 10 to 14 days of Cuba's oil needs.

So it's a very limited amount of time.

Now, Russia has said they're going to send another tanker.

Um, I was in conversations with the ambassadors from Mexico and some other places, and I know other countries in Latin America are trying to figure out how to get oil there, but it is a crisis beyond imagination.

Just this past Friday, on May 1st, Trump signed a broad executive order that widens sanctions and allows for new penalties similar to what we have for Iran and Russia against foreign banks and firms that are dealing with Cuba.

And it also reinforces the ban on US tourism.

I have called these sanctions an economic bombing of the infrastructure of Cuba.

>> All right.

So that's Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal of Washington state there.

So that's some of the perspective in Washington on Cuba.

Let me ask our guests.

I'll start with Jason.

Um, you know, there's a lot of sort of glib talk about taking over Cuba here.

What do you make of that?

>> Oh, I mean, it's a lot of talk, but I mean, for many of us who've grown up within the Cuban diaspora, you know, with family, I literally was just talking to my cousin Carlos, who left two years ago because of July 11th protests.

You know, and he's arguing like they're going to destroy the infrastructure when there is no infrastructure, there's no roads, railroads, like barely work.

You know, the ports are, you know, 50, 60 years old.

Hospitals have already been collapsing since the 90s, you know, so we're, we're in a structure that, you know, he said it perfectly.

We were just talking about it like, all this is doing is making hell more like hell for these people.

And it's unifying from what he's been told from people on the island, this sense of this sense of more hatred towards the American government, you know, that they, you know, and it just strengthens the you know, it strengthens the government.

It doesn't.

And it hurts the people.

>> So so this posturing, you think, strengthens the Cuban leadership.

>> Yeah.

>> But is it possible that a regime change would lead the Cuban people to feel like they have, in a sense, been liberated?

>> Well, there was a moment, like in in July, in 2021, there was that moment where there was a strong regime change.

And one of the different factors was economics.

You know, this is you, right?

Like, you know, the beginning of Trump's, you know, like the beginning of the pandemic, you have all this issues happening, but you have a group of young, predominantly African Americans, educated population protests in this regime change.

Now they have nothing to like.

They can't they're not allowed to protest.

It's been illegal since 1967.

They're they're not allowed.

There's no real education on government structures of how to, you know, get candidates.

And none of that exists since the Constitution in 67.

So there it's not going to create what they think it's going to create.

It's just going to create more misery for the people.

The government is just going to clamp down and say, look at them.

Look, look, look, look, we Castro told us for, you know, for 60 years, America's a fat, ugly pig.

And now we and.

They hate you.

They hate you.

And the exiles hate you.

Even though many of the exiles have.

As you know, and we both know, we've supported our families for 60 years.

You know, my first memories are loading up bags to go onto airplanes, you know, that were twice the size of my, you know, like, but it was it was $1,000 bill, like $1,000, $100 sneakily US dollars snuck in between pillowcases or DVD players or anything they could sell on the island to, you know, we would load them up with bags.

And then my aunt would come back with a tiny little bag, you know?

But we would drop duffel bags and duffel bags onto the planes in Toronto so that they can, you know, sell it on the island.

So we've, we've, we've always known that we've supported people.

>> So before I get Lewis's take here, let me just ask you, if you don't think a regime change strike or an operation would actually benefit the Cuban people, what would benefit the Cuban people?

>> Um, I think in many ways open up an economic dialog would benefit the Cuban people, like allowing the Cuban people to actually, like, want to create some economic growth, which was happening for a short time.

But under the Obama years.

But even under the Obama years, the US, the Cuban government took a took their took their part of it.

You know, I remember having a lot of people go to Cuba say, oh, you know, I went to Cuba, I went to Cuba, I loved it, I got to go to here.

I went here and I was just sitting there going like, yeah, but you're not you're not giving money to the people.

You're just giving money to the regime.

>> Which is why a lot of administrations, American administrations, have said, we're not going to open up with you because the people aren't going to benefit.

Yeah.

So with this regime in place, what you're describing, how do you get around that if you're just going to try to open up economic relations?

But, you know, the regime is going to hoard the wealth for themselves, what can you do?

>> Being Cuban?

>> Yeah.

>> Welcome to growing up with this is my whole, you know, I'm 43 this year and I like, I've known this my whole life.

You know, I've seen this story in my whole life.

>> Feels like there's no good answer.

>> There is no good answer because it's, it's, it's, there's no black and white answer when it comes to Cuba.

>> If there was a simple answer, we'd have done it.

You think?

Yeah, okay.

Okay.

So Luis, from your perspective, um, let's start with this.

Do you want to see the American military intervene with a regime change, strike some kind of operation, et cetera.?

>> Not quite like that.

Here's what I have in mind.

Uh, it's a carrot and stick approach.

I'm sure that, um, the leadership, the current leadership in Washington is offering some carrots to their so-called president of Cuba.

Now, I don't even name his name, uh, somebody.

>> Yeah.

Miguel Diaz-Canel.

>> Yeah.

That guy, uh, because he, he doesn't run anything as Raul Castro behind the scenes is running everything.

So I'll say Castro.

So the Castro regime has two options.

The carrot or the stick.

The carrot is that they can go off to Russia or China with, you know, several million dollars and no questions asked.

Just get out of dodge.

The stick would be, uh, very precise.

Surgical strikes, including taking him out of bed and putting him on a C-130 back to to Brooklyn.

>> The same way we did with in Venezuela.

>> Exactly.

Those are the options in between.

There's just a lot of, uh, gesturing, posturing.

You know, I used to, I used to sit across the table from the United Auto Workers and the Teamsters and the steelworkers and all that.

And it was all bluster, bluster.

You know, I would sit down and before we had our first breakfast, I'm already been, you know, the f bombs are just coming in.

It's just that kind of stuff.

I ignore that because that's not the answer.

That is just a just bluster.

So so a, it comes down to this.

We have to offer them a sufficient of a carrot that they decide to forego this and go someplace else, or it's going to be the stick.

And now it will not.

It will not be.

I'll tell you what.

It will not be.

It will not be.

We have we still have Guantanamo Bay, Guantanamo Bay prison in Guantanamo Bay.

It's not going to be, uh, thousands of Marines invading the eastern shore of Cuba.

That's not going to happen.

Uh, like I said, the most that can happen would be a very precise strike for a very specific reason.

They have seen what happened to Maduro.

And I don't know if you recall, that when Maduro was captured, 32 of his security members were killed.

Remember that?

Yeah, all 32 of them were Cubans.

Do you remember that?

>> I didn't I did not know that.

>> Yes, for two reasons.

One, he couldn't trust the Venezuelans and two, Cuban, uh, security was trained by the KGB, the Russians, basically, and the Chinese.

They're the best mercenaries that he could afford.

And money's no object.

So he.

That's who he chose.

So it would be that kind of a scenario.

Now, in the meantime, imagine if the US Army in the United States owned the revenue for the Hilton and the Ritz-Carlton and the Holiday Inn.

It's the Cuban army that runs those hotels in Cuba.

It's the Cuban army who who reaps 100% of the gross revenue from those hotels.

That's why we have to discourage tourism to Cuba, because all you're doing is you're not helping the people and the people who do work there.

They get paid miserable, by the way, Cubans earn an average of 15 to $16 a month from the from the Cuban government, because that's the only place you can work.

>> So in other words, that's why I presume that you not just because you were a Republican candidate and maybe don't have a ton of affection for the policies of the Obama administration.

Correct.

Okay.

See.

>> But but I got a good one for you.

>> But I want to ask you just briefly, when the Obama administration opened up relations, I suspect you were saying, look, this doesn't actually help the people.

>> No.

>> Exactly.

>> Right.

So it did not.

And but I do want to always think about the positive side.

Listen to this.

In the United States, we have a clear monument to what the Cuban people can build.

And it's called Miami.

>> Mhm.

>> Who said that?

>> I don't know.

>> Barack Hussein Obama in 2016.

>> It's true.

>> I have it right here.

So the point is that he may have meant, well, let's just give him the credit for that.

Just the benefit of the doubt.

But you don't you can't sustain a system where the where the company, the country's army is the recipient of all the revenue.

Yeah.

And you don't and you prohibit people from doing from cutting hair for, for a for a fee.

>> So a couple of things I want you to react to some of Jason's points.

But before we get that, just briefly on Venezuela, I, I don't know how to assess.

I think we're going to need time to assess whether the action has, quote, unquote, been successful in Venezuela.

>> I agree.

>> Because the person in charge now was Maduro's second in command.

That regime is still largely in place.

The idea is the Trump administration is keeping a watchful eye on their actions.

>> Mhm.

>> But when we talk to Venezuelan Americans, Venezuelan people from the Venezuelan diaspora, they've been in this program largely saying, I mean, I don't know anybody that loves Maduro.

They hate Maduro.

>> Okay.

Yeah.

>> Wept with joy when he's gone.

>> Yeah.

>> But want a true change, a true opportunity for liberty.

>> Right.

>> And they still have family and friends in Venezuela who will not text to them because they're fearful that the government is reading their messages.

>> Correct.

>> And they feel like to this moment, nothing has fundamentally changed.

So it's possible over time that the seeds for change are there and they'll unfold.

But I don't think you can look at Venezuela right now and say, well, that's a totally different situation for the people.

They're still suffering.

We'll see.

>> Right.

>> Are you are you confident that in Cuba, the leadership could either take the deal you're describing, go off to Russia, take your millions.

No one will bother you as long as you shut.

>> Up about it.

>> I'm just.

>> Yeah.

>> No, I understand what you're saying.

I understand what you're saying.

Or we'll take you out ourselves.

That's what you want to see.

But the next people in charge, might be different, right?

>> The next people in charge would be different there.

>> They would be different.

>> Yeah.

They they're residing in Miami right now and they're just can't wait to go there and start fixing things up and make them better.

And we have as, as, as Obama said, we have the wherewithal to do that.

Literally the money to do that.

I can't tell you how many millionaire Cubans I know.

>> Go.

>> To the University of Miami.

They have a plan of how they're going to remodel Havana in the basement.

>> Yeah.

>> So so that is that is just waiting in the wings.

And what we need is for the Cuban military to put their weapons down and just use law and order instead of trying to prosecute, you know, hundreds of thousands of people that at any given time for simply raising their hand and saying, I want to eat, you know?

>> Yeah.

And Cuba is not Iran.

I mean, like Iran is proving to be a massive challenge because even with the regime change, decapitation of a dozen of the top leaders, they have not dislodged that regime.

And it's going to be very, very difficult.

Yes, Cuba is different.

It's smaller.

I understand that.

Right.

But to Jason's point, are you concerned that the propaganda that for decades the Castro regime has said, America hates you?

>> You know, yeah, that works.

>> On some people I know, I know, I know, are you ready for this?

I can name names.

Uh, there's a young lady in Miami now who almost became part of my family who escaped from Cuba, went to Spain, came to Miami.

She's still in Miami.

She's my my friend on Facebook.

She's a communist and she's a communist in Miami who always, uh, who hates everything that we that that I support.

She almost married my cousin.

And the point is that, you know, you got people like, uh, Mayorkas is a Cuban communist.

And what used to be the, the, the AG for the city of Los Angeles is a Cuban communist.

So there are people in Cuba and in Miami who support communism, or at least when it benefits them in some kind of economic way and so forth.

As long as they're on the top of the heap, they don't care what happens.

So there are people like that.

But back to your question.

We are ready to do something.

The Venezuelans, frankly, I mean, I don't I know Venezuelans, I haven't discussed this topic with them specifically, but there's a lady across the street from me who is who goes to Venezuela frequently at this point.

And she's happy that, um, you know, that things are changing.

They're not changing to the extent, as you pointed out correctly, that they're not changing to the extent that we had hoped by this time.

>> And again, maybe they.

>> Will and.

>> Maybe they will.

>> And we have to at least or at least we don't have to take out another Maduro.

You know, I don't think and, and in Venezuela, and I hope that the people in Venezuela who got their act together can, can, can make a positive difference in the sense that they have a scheme, a number of people and a number of principles that will cause X number of people plus one to, to want that regime, a new regime.

>> So, Jason, do you feel like dislodging this regime, whether it's the carrot and stick that whether it's the carrot or the stick, would it lead to a better government?

Do you agree that there's people who could come in and make real change?

>> I do think, you know, as somebody who's grown up with that idea that like humans can do anything, you know, like we, we're just we created modern television.

Desi Arnaz is a great example of that.

You know, like, we, we, you can't put our culture down.

But I, I agree with you.

I think it is a carrot and stick and in some elements, but you have to get rid of the regime.

And what worries me is, you know, Rubio has gone and talked with Raul's grandson, who's my age, and I'm like, that's not going to help the Cuban Americans who have all the resources and money in in Miami, because they're just going to be like, well, you're just going to talk to another Castro.

You know, like, it's just, it's to me, that's not the way to do it.

If you're going to replace somebody that the Castros handpicked with the grandson of Castro doesn't doesn't make any practical sense to get like that, that change, that carrot and stick model out.

>> Well, it's interesting you say that because in Iran, there's been a lot of talk and there's still a lot of talk about someone named Reza Pahlavi, who is the son of the Shah, who was obviously, um, chased out in the late 1970s.

And he spent most of his life in the West.

He's Western educated, lives in the United States, and he would like to be the next leader of Iran or a transitional leader of Iran.

And some of the Iranian people want that, and some do not.

Some view him as, you know, just another child, like a nepotism child of a previously corrupt regime.

And if we if we stay in the lineage of previously corrupt regimes, are we really making change?

So what you're describing with the Castros is sounds to me like this the same kind of fear that says, who are we choosing to go in there?

Will they enact real reform when all they have known is how to benefit themselves and enrich themselves at the suffering of others?

And it sounds to me, Jason, like you can't help but be a little cynical or concerned about where this would lead to.

>> Oh yeah.

>> Is that fair?

>> Yeah, it's it's, it's very fair.

It's, it's, I think there is a sense of, I don't know, I think like, if you grow up Cuban, you grow up very cynical on both sides.

You could, you can, you can't, you can't trust either side of, of, of the narrative because you realize the narrative is way more nuanced and way more complicated.

And, and, you know, like there's these myths and truths that, you know, even reading that article like that, you said me, it was the aspect of talking about how great the Cuban health care system is, you know, like how great the doctors are used to be or used to be.

And I'm like, it never was that way.

I have photos I brought of just how bad it was in the 90s, you know, so it's like, that was 20 years ago.

So it's to us, it's the myth that often Americans have been told, while the Cuban Americans are sitting there kind of going, this is not the stories we're hearing.

You know, this is not what we're hearing on the island.

This is not what we're being told.

It doesn't matter if we're Democrats or Republicans.

We're hearing the same stories.

And when we talk to both sides, it comes in a very you know, we talked to more Americans.

It's becomes very binary.

>> So.

>> Luis, I take I understand, I mean, I can't empathize, I'm not Cuban, but I can understand Jason feeling like, boy, it's been decades and whatever has happened, the Cuban people are always last.

And so it's easy to feel like whatever change is coming, it's not going to benefit us.

What are the conditions that you would need to see to be convinced that the next leadership is serious about actually benefiting the Cuban people?

>> Well thank you.

Uh, the conditions are the ones that we enjoy for 250 years, which is we a constitution and a group of people elected to office with a, uh, a democratic approach.

And, um, to make sure that the, and that they have to allow even China allows it private enterprise to the extent that people can, can, uh, you know, create their own future through private enterprise, which is forbidden in Cuba.

Everybody makes 16, $17.

A brain surgeon has to drive a taxi to get American cash to pay his rent.

Because, you know, it doesn't matter how smart you are and how good you are, you have no you have no more than $17 a month from the government.

That has to change that mindset.

That whole mindset has to change.

So it's communism.

It has to be thrown out 100%, not a little bit like 100%.

And on the medical model, oh my gosh, here's a lot of people don't know.

I mentioned that 32 mercenaries in, in, um.

>> In Venezuela.

Yeah.

>> Uh, maybe some of them went there to make money, but a lot of them go there because they're mercenaries whose revenue goes back to the Cuban army.

So, uh, doctors and I have a family, uh, a cousin who's a doctor.

He would have ended up if he had not escaped the United States, he would have ended up in Angola or or, uh, down in Colombia or someplace as a mercenary for medicine.

And again, the, the revenue from his services goes first to the government, and then they give him something.

And if he doesn't want to do it, you don't have a choice because they have your family hostage.

And I could go on.

So the point is that it is a completely repressive thing, like you have never experienced.

And the reason that the people can't rise up is because even while I was there as a as a 12 year old, I could see the committees for the defense of the Revolution, which are spy networks in every community, every block, every neighborhood has at least one committee for the defense of Revolution.

And they have the right to ask you, demand from you everything and anything that's in your refrigerator.

What's in your car?

Where did you go?

Who did you see?

Who's in your house?

Why are you there?

How much money?

How many eggs do you have in the refrigerator?

They have that control.

And I experienced that in 1961.

So it's still here and it's still there.

And and those things have to be overthrown.

So that's a long winded answer to your question.

>> No, I.

>> Drastically, drastically.

>> Changed my cousin Carlos, who and his and his father who just who just came here last year.

They, you know, were educated professionals.

They were he was a professor of film, um, in Cuba, in Santiago, you know, speaks three languages fluently, but because he had some friends in the July 11th protest, they came to his house, they said, get out or get out.

And he literally had to escape across, you know, illegally.

Because again, Trump got rid of the dry foot policy.

>> And no, it was Obama.

>> Obama.

Obama did.

Yeah.

Obama did.

Yeah, Obama did.

Trump.

Thank Obama did.

Trump just made it worse.

Biden never did anything about it.

And now you have almost a decade now, over a decade of people who don't have that asylum protection that our generation, uh, you know, was received.

>> Yeah.

>> So one more question for the guests.

And then what I'll do is I'll hand it over to phone calls and emails.

I, Richard and Geneva, you'll be first on the phone.

I've got some comments on YouTube in the chat there.

And if you want to email the program, it's connections@wxxi.org.

One of the things that the congressional Democrats who visited Cuba recently wrote in The New York Times was that they are very concerned about the energy blockade that they they say the Trump administration has instigated on the Cuban people.

And the results now are, uh, I don't think they're saying there was never a problem before.

I think they're saying it is extreme that pregnant women are climbing stairs on their own because there's no power in hospitals to power elevators.

The doctors are keeping babies alive on ventilators by hand, because the electrical grid can't can't serve them.

And this is a result of Trump administration policy.

Is that true?

From what you've seen, Luis?

>> Well.

>> What I know is that the it's the embargo that they claim is the cause.

That's not the cause.

The cause is socialism and communism.

Okay, I have the receipts here.

This is how many countries Cuba trades with.

Cuba trades with a lot of countries.

>> He's holding up a paper for those who are listening and not watching on YouTube.

>> But go ahead.

>> So this is a study by MIT.

They they produce it for every country.

I picked Cuba.

And I have the numbers here.

Cuba went down 60% in five years in gross domestic product, the gross domestic product of Cuba today is 2% of that of Vermont, which is the lowest in the United States in terms of by state.

So the point is that communism began destroying the island in 1959.

It is actively destroying the island today, and it has nothing to do with Trump.

It has to do with the fact that communism is the most repressive tool in existence today.

It exists in North Korea.

It exists in Cuba, and a couple of.

Until recently in Venezuela.

So that shows you that what Cuba.

Cuba used to have more head of cattle than than citizens in the 1950s.

Okay.

Now you you can't even eat fish because you're prohibited.

I have a friend that went to Cuba as a tourist, and he was prohibited from eating fish.

Because if you catch a fish, you have to give it to the government.

You have no right to catch fish.

I'm not exaggerating.

>> Anthony Bourdain, when he was there not even a decade ago, when, you know, like when during the Obama years literally went to a restaurant and they're feeding him fish and like, no, we can't have that.

And he literally had to give it to the cook who made it and be like, well, we can't eat this.

And I have pictures like I brought here's my, my Tia from the from this is 99, like from 1999, like she died of preventable a cancer that could have been treated here.

Right.

You know, and I have another picture that thankfully I didn't bring it.

I, we were just talking about the ivy that she was carrying is one of those glass ones that you see, like in museums.

>> Yeah.

>> You know, and this is, you know, my cousin, my cousin and Alfredo, I mean, their son had a cancer that again, very easily treated in the United States, died because he couldn't get the medical treatment, you know, and I, you know, the medical issues that were happening, that's just that factor on top of this kind of existence that has always existed there, where we've had to provide even just the basic medicine for Advil, Tylenol.

We would have to ship that in throughout the 90s and 80s, I would we would load boxes of that stuff in luggages.

So I mean, that's just normal painkillers that we would just send over to the island so that that is just.

And also, if you go, if you went to Union City, New Jersey, you would see you see advertisements for packages or Miami, you see advertising for packages all the time, which would be these are packages that you would mail in with just medical supplies.

Right.

And some food supplies and money secretly hidden in the medical supplies so that you can give to your family.

>> I have.

>> A Puerto Rican friend who's a pastor, and I have given him donations and he somehow is from Puerto Rico.

We go to Cuba to certain towns that Holguin and a couple other places, and he would have suitcases full of everything you take for granted, from aspirin to diapers to to hygiene products and all that, you know, toothbrushes and all that.

And I used.

>> To.

>> Syringes everything, everything that that you can.

So the point back to your question, the, uh, Cuba had a gross domestic product of $2.4 billion.

That's just 2.4 billion.

And Vermont has 46 billion.

But that was in 2019.

Today, they have 992 million.

>> I've got it at 1.4 billion.

But that's still it's still like a six.

It's about a 40% drop in just 6 or 7 years.

Yeah.

>> Yeah, yeah.

So that's a huge drop.

>> And it wasn't big to begin with.

>> It has.

>> Nothing to do with nothing to do with the embargo, because they can trade with every country around the world and they can buy, you know, tacos from Mexico and tomatoes from Italy.

They can do anything they want, but they can't because they don't have the money to buy it.

A country needs money, revenue from the production of, of, of goods and services.

And they don't have any because they prohibit you from creating the goods and services necessary to.

>> For.

>> American companies for, for 60 years have already skirted around the embargo.

You know, you can get GE light bulbs, but they're made by a French company in Cuba.

So it's like and GE still making the money, you know, like it.

It's just how they just figured out ways around it.

The embargo.

It's it's it's more now I don't know.

To me, it's more just like this made up idea, this boogeyman.

Yeah.

That it's so easy to explain it.

It's like a good propaganda tool that I often see both on the left and the right kind of just go like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's, you know.

But there is elements of the US fault in all of this, you know, because we haven't figured out a proper way.

We haven't really worked with creating economic models with the island and pushing, you know, the Chinese government or the Russian government to create, you know, democratic socialist models or, you know, capitalistic models that they've already, you seen flourish in those countries.

We could have, you know, like, there could have been that dialog years ago, especially under the Obama years, really, to get the Chinese government to kind of participate in that dialog with Cuba and to pressure them economically to do that.

But it didn't happen.

It's almost like it's been a second thought for the American government.

And also it's again, it goes back to the Kennedy myth, the the Castro myths.

It goes back to that kind of years of the Cuban government.

You know, Castro playing with, you know, with Jimmy Carter, with Bill Clinton.

And, you know, and creating or or with the US presidents and kind of like doing boogeyman tactics and saying, you know, hey, I'm going to send a bunch of people over or I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, you know, it's, we're now living with that image of that, all that, that cultural myths of, of, of Cuba.

And I think right now, the reality is it's, it's pretty, it's very, very bad.

And it's just getting worse.

>> So let's take our only break of the hour.

We'll come back to your phone calls, emails and more.

My guests are Cuban Americans talking about what's happening or what could happen in Cuba, given that the Trump administration has essentially announced that something is going to happen, a military campaign to remove the regime or leadership or some kind of change there.

Jason Barber Luis Martinez, my guests in the studio, your feedback next.

>> Coming up in our second hour of the Move to Include podcast series from WXXI continues, we bring you the newest episode, hot off the presses, and our colleague Noelle Evans hosts and has a conversation with a woman who explains how she sees ableism in the health care system and why it's so hard to call it out sometimes.

Because, as she says, disabled people still need their doctors to be their doctors.

That episode next hour.

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>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson on the phone first as Richard in Geneva.

Hey, Richard, go ahead.

>> Hey, thanks very much.

I'm calling because I heard you guys talking a lot about Cuba and comparing it to the possibilities that happened in Venezuela and everything.

But I was curious.

Nobody mentioned anything about Haiti, and it sounds to me like that might be actually a good example to think about in terms of how things could go completely wrong.

It's a place where there were undemocratic and autocratic leaders in place for a long, long time.

The multiple U.S.

Interventions, and it's disintegrated into disaster run by gangs and other organizations.

And I could easily see that some of the revolutionary groups that you're talking about in neighborhoods could reorganize as gangs, et cetera.. What's to prevent the situation becoming essentially a failed state if there's too much U.S.

Intervention, rather than a softer approach that, um, for example, opening it up, uh, and allowing trade.

Um, I take my response off the air, but, uh, I don't think I just want to say, I don't think that the possibilities are as rosy as, as what you guys seem to be talking about.

>> Uh, Richard.

Thank you.

Richard calling from Geneva, listening on Finger Lakes Public Radio, WEOS 89.5 FM in the Finger Lakes.

Uh, thank you for the phone call.

Let me start with Luis, because you you're a little bit more optimistic about the notion.

Of a forced regime change.

>> And Richard's.

>> Concerned about a failed state.

>> Take a picture.

Uh, look up some pictures of Havana in 1958, 1959, when I was there and I was ten, 11 years old.

And what I saw and what I experienced.

And then compare that to Haiti.

There's no comparison.

It's it's totally, totally different.

We have the wherewithal to be who we were before a before Castro became popular.

And we can replace that all over again.

And as Obama said, we can build another monument to to progress economic and and electoral progress.

Um, in a matter of a few years, because we have the people, we have the knowledge, we have the money for sure.

What we need is a, a change of the regime that has to do that, that allows private enterprise and, and fundamental human rights, which they don't.

>> Okay.

>> So before I get Jason's take on this, let me follow up Richard's point with a question that I promise is actually related here.

Do you support the, the actions in, in Iran that the United States is undertaking?

>> Yes.

>> You do.

Okay.

And under what grounds, what purpose?

>> Because right now, uh, if if this did not happen, Iran would be able to launch a ballistic missile into the Vatican.

That is a fact.

I'm not making that up.

Look it up.

Iran proved that they could launch a ballistic missile as far as the Vatican and hit it.

We had to we have to we have an obligation for as long as I live to make sure that Iran that that Islamic states who think like Iran, not all of them are like that, but that one is that people like that who think like that are not allowed to have ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons because they can reach our civilization with those things.

>> So here's why I'm asking, which, by the way, we'll set aside the missile conversation for another day because there's new reporting from John Swan and others that Iran already has been able to reconstitute a lot of its missile capabilities, even from the start of the the war.

>> So we have to destroy it all over again, because they cannot.

>> I mean, that sounds like the Vatican.

>> That sounds like endless.

>> War.

>> Possibly.

>> But what would you rather have?

>> What would you rather have?

>> Do you think Iran is incentivized to shoot a missile into the Vatican, do you think?

>> Yes you do.

Totally.

>> Okay.

>> So do you think have you listened to what they have to say?

>> Oh, I.

>> Do, how many times do they have to come and tell you that they want.

>> To kill you?

I'm not going to.

>> Debate you on the war in Iran.

That's not what I'm trying to do.

I'm trying to understand your perspective because what you are describing is not allowing a state that's led by people who think a certain way to behave a certain way.

>> Correct.

>> So do.

>> You support evil?

>> Do you support the regime change in Iran?

>> Absolutely.

Because the current regime is evil.

Okay?

>> Not crazy evil.

Okay.

>> Crazy is an involuntary condition.

>> Evil is the vast majority.

>> Of Iranian people in Iran and around the world agree with you on that point?

>> Thank you.

>> There's no question.

It's a question of if you can achieve it.

>> And it's a question.

>> You must achieve it, or your children and grandchildren will live under ballistic missiles for the rest of their life.

>> Now, as I said, Cuba is not Iran and Cuba is not Venezuela, and Iran is not every every.

>> State has its.

Own characteristics.

It's different.

>> The reason that Richard is concerned.

Is what he sees are optimistic attempts at regime change and failed states.

And and failure.

>> I've seen a lot of them.

I've seen many.

>> Of them.

And he's saying that you are too optimistic that in Cuba we could just sort of pick and.

>> Choose optimistic.

Okay.

I choose to be optimistic.

Okay.

It's a story of my life.

It's a story of Cubans.

We're optimistic.

Yeah.

>> Some of the most optimistic.

>> Oh, God.

Obama.

Obama quoted it, you know, so we know what we're doing, okay?

We're different.

Okay.

He, he began by talking about Haiti, by the way, the chief, uh, I won't I won't get too personal, but the person who saved my life with cancer is from Haiti, and he is a physician and a surgeon.

So my point is that how they run their country and how Cubans, what Cubans had already achieved mid 20th century are vastly different.

So I am, I am, I know, and Jason agrees that we can do that all over again.

>> I, I, I mean, I like to go to Richard's point, what he was mentioning about Haiti, I there is that aspect of it to kind of go with your point as well, that the, you know, you have this military, very highly educated military, KGB educated Chinese government, military, military, but they're also opportunists.

So there is this element of, you know, you can easily you have a huge wealthy base in Miami, in Florida, in the United States, and throughout all of Europe, uh, that are willing to kind of go, hey, give us in charge, you know, and money matters to these people because that's the one thing they want.

So you may have this educated population, but to me, it's a little different than Haiti that you're not going to have these like war zones and fighting and infighting because the reality is you're so hungry for everything, even if you're a military member and who gets all the top stuff that you want, you're still want more.

And greed wins in that.

And I hate sounding I don't like, like, but I, I think for those people.

>> Luis thinks you're becoming a Republican.

>> Oh, I'm not, I'm not far from it.

I am not becoming a Republican.

I didn't ask.

>> Him, by the way, notice that I have not used those two words.

>> Yeah, no, I understand.

But but I.

>> Think but I also understand there is this culture when you've had nothing for so long that and you are a very educated people, that there is going to be that want for that that structure to happen.

But there's also going to be this dichotomy of it, you know, like you are we look at, you know, like the American people as capitalist pigs, you know, like that's the cultural upbringing.

You know, my cousin Carlos and I were talking about that today.

Like, yeah, there's this fat image that Castro described for decades, decades of Americans as fat, ugly pig.

And now we have a fat, ugly pig as leader.

So it's like the image now is like, oh, it's become reality.

But but the reality also is these people need that money and those war, those guys that you think could be turned into warlords, they're going to be like, they might be bought there by them.

They're more like what they were like.

Like Batista's men were back in the 1950s with the mob.

They're more of like those guys, you know, like, hey, you're the you're the Santiago, you know, police department chief in Santiago de Cuba here, right?

Can you give us a casino?

Sure.

>> I think.

>> That happens everywhere.

>> I think.

>> But I think tied to Richard's question is what's the worst case scenario?

So we've heard the best case scenario from both of our guests who I think there's some space between them, but there's there's a lot of agreement.

Luis is very optimistic that a regime change operation can work.

Yeah, Jason's a little more cynical, but hopeful because Cubans are hopeful.

>> I don't think a military strike is going to do anything.

I think it's just going to cause any.

>> Okay, but what's the worst case?

Luis?

Give me the worst case scenario of of an American intervention.

>> That my, uh, children and grandchildren come to your your, uh, radio show one day and still talking about Cuba the way we are today.

>> That's the word.

I'm the grandchild of a Cuban exile.

Right?

Okay.

>> So a so-called regime change that doesn't actually change the.

>> Regime, it doesn't change anything or it doesn't happen, you know, for whatever reasons.

And then it's an opportunity lost.

You know, this is the greatest opportunity we've had in 67 years to see something actually make it make a difference.

>> There's a, there's a, what's that quote that I've grown up with?

It's like, maybe next year we'll be back home in Havana, you know, maybe next year.

Yeah.

You know, that's, that's the quote we've been told our whole lives, right?

Yeah.

And it's my mother is born January 4th, 1959.

She's 67 this year.

Yeah.

She's never got she's, you know, she came here when she was seven.

She's never will.

Both her parents, all my grandparents, like all my you know, all my tias, everyone who left the island, they're all dead.

>> Yeah.

>> You know, like there's we haven't maybe next year.

>> The next year never came.

>> Next year has never come for us.

So now it's just like, what else do we have left?

>> Yeah, absolutely.

Um, okay, so Rick emails to say, uh, Evan, your guest claim the refugee community in Miami will make things better.

I'm old enough to remember the arrival of the first wave of Cuban refugees, and each succeeding wave up to today.

What I know is that refugee community engaged in terrorism, bombing a Colombian airliner as part of its attack on supporters of Cuba, engaged in denying free speech to those who opposed their ideology and goals.

I believe their leader was Mas Canova, and they have received enormous amounts of monetary support from U.S.

Taxpayers to enable them to prosper.

When others from the Caribbean were denied entry to the U.S., how do your guests explain what is different about the Cuban refugee population in Miami?

From what I have witnessed over six decades, that is from Rick Luis.

>> Rick, I don't know what what taxpayer support though, or the organization enjoyed because I didn't enjoy any taxpayer support in our.

When we came to the United States.

None whatsoever.

Okay.

There was a one way ticket from Miami to Philadelphia.

That was it.

To get us out of Miami because it was crowded and the jobs were scarce.

But, uh, other than that, zero.

So then if I know who the fellow that he's referring to and to my to my knowledge, I don't know of any taxpayer support.

However, there, there are those people who had lost everything.

They were my parents generation that that he's referring to.

I could see that they wanted to change, uh, the course of Cuba in their time.

And they like political parties.

They had their differences.

Uh, my mother used to listen, to listen, used to listen to radio mambi, which was a Cuban, uh, Free Cuba radio station in Miami.

She listened to it 24 hours a day.

And, uh, but it doesn't mean that my mother was a murderer or wanted to bomb some airliner.

Uh, there are a lot of really bad people on the communist side.

I can't emphasize enough that the most the the largest killers of people in humankind have been the Islamists and the communists.

That's verifiably true.

And and so communists today, as we speak here in this radio show, there has incarcerated hundreds of thousands of Cubans in different ways.

Means and, and, and still has to be clear.

>> Luis did not say Islamic people.

He said Islamists, Islamists.

>> That's very correct.

>> And and I don't have the data to challenge or corroborate your comments, but I understand I have no, no, I'm not I'm not doubting.

I'm just saying it is in terms of the biggest killers in history.

>> Well.

>> Communism alone kills a million people a year.

To this day.

>> I'm not going to argue that.

>> Communism has begun.

Uh, long ago before.

>> I think I think, uh, one of the core things that we, we have to answer that, that question, um, there is a complexity within Cuba, Cuban culture, like just to point out, there's a great book, if anybody wants to read it.

Paulo Ramos, the daughter of José Ramos, who's, you know, like our Tom Brokaw or Latinos, she wrote a book called defectors that came out in 2024.

Great aspects understand the dichotomy of Latino nature.

Um, she points out that the head of the Proud Boys is a Cuban American, the largest groups of moms for liberty is in Miami Dade County.

So there is a dichotomy within this nature of our people, within nature, of all people in many ways.

In many ways, our cultures, we think there's good and bad, and there are people who have committed those actions within the Cuban.

>> Cubans are not a monolith.

>> They're not a monolith culture.

We're not like nobody is a monolith.

Cultures.

When we talk about Iran, it's not a monolith.

We talk about other countries.

They're not monoliths.

There's a lot of cultural nuance that is not talked about.

And there's also a lot of cultural ideology that is so messed up, so complicated.

The idea that, like one of the guys who led the like attack, like was Cuban, sorry, you know, like, I mean, one of the, you know, the Proud Boys leaders was a Cuban American, you know, like that to me.

>> But that doesn't disqualify.

>> Doesn't qualify.

You know, that I suspect it's just there is that there is that that that that cultural, that connection.

And also a lot of it kind of goes back to the Castro myth.

You know, Castro came in.

Why did Cubans seem to get a preferential treatment is because of marketing and branding.

Castro killed it.

You know, he looked like a propaganda.

He looked like he was a great propagandist.

He looked like he looked like the American Revolution with with like, like.

But Jesus, you know.

>> The mistake that that the United States made early on and continue and continue to make for generations is that they underestimated Fidel Castro.

I know him personally.

His son was my little friend there for a while when we were 11 years old.

And to I saw him in person many times, and again, my aunt used to work with him, so I. He was a just a very, very, uh, you know, iconic person in his time.

>> Charismatic.

>> Charismatic, you know, you wanted to believe him.

My parents, everybody in my family believed him until he showed his cards.

And then they changed 180 degrees.

>> Well, here's Dallas, who writes in and says most people from communist countries don't like communism.

>> There you go.

That's true.

>> Yeah.

Because once it's imposed on you, it is imposed on you.

You have no no chance to turn it around.

You have no electoral, uh, you no option whatsoever except to overthrow it.

Because once they take over, that's it.

They shut the door behind them.

>> We have less than a minute.

And I hope in the months to come, because I suspect we're going to see some kind of action in Cuba that you will come back here and we'll continue to evaluate.

So give me 20s that you want to leave with the audience.

As we look at what's going to happen in Cuba, what do you want people to think about?

>> I want them to think about the that the, the, the kind of economic situation that they have in Cuba was not caused by the embargo.

It was caused by communism.

And we can change that.

We can change that.

>> Jason.

>> I think the core aspect is we're a very strong people and that we can.

You know, that whatever's going to happen.

And I do honestly come on the optimistic side that Cubans will come out of it, and we will strengthen the island.

And we'll I mean, I do think it's absurd.

What Trump's talking about.

But honestly, I do I agree with, you know, we're going to make this through.

You know, it will happen.

>> Thank you both for being here.

Um, and Luis, by the way, brought in an old passport.

I mean, 12 years old when you left the island here.

Look at these incredible pictures here.

I wish we had more time to spend with it, but, um, your yourself and your uncle in this picture, is that right?

>> That's my little sister.

>> Oh, your little sister.

>> She's.

She's a retired nurse in Miami now.

My uncle passed away when he was 100.

He was a rebel with Castro.

>> I mean, he almost looks like a little Fidel in this here.

Yeah, the beard and the.

>> Rifles that was there at that time.

>> Uh, thank you for for being here.

And come back and talk to us in Luis Martinez Jason Barber.

Thanks, guys.

More Connections coming up in a moment.

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