Francesca Chambers
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
And there are certain things that they'd have to do according to the law.
It also calls for there to be free speech, freedom of expression inside of Cuba, as well as elections that have multi-party opposition or at least credible steps towards those kind of elections.
And those aren't things that we've seen the Cuban government do.
During that time, after the deal that President Obama made, he made it easier, essentially, for Americans—
to be able to visit Cuba at that time.
And he also actually pushed for the embargo to be lifted as part of this, although that obviously did not take place.
I actually went with President Obama to Havana when he went down there as part of this normalization of relations that we're talking about.
And he met with Raul Castro and he gave a speech on human rights.
And back then, there was sort of this sense of potentially that there could be additional movement on the relationship and issues with Cuba.
What I've heard from Republicans in particular and from people close to the Trump administration that's different between what Obama did and what the Trump administration is doing here now is that the Trump administration does actually want to see
A regime change, whether or not, as Rubio said, they're going to force the regime changes is still an open question.
But they have said they'd like to see regime change here.
That's something that they're pushing for.
Whereas in the Obama administration, that wasn't what the Obama administration has specifically said the policy was.
Friends of Marco Rubio have told me that that is a clear through line in his career, that that is something that he wants to see.
It's something that drives him.
And even as, you know, President Trump, he has talked about the same thing.
He's said that he wants to see this.
You know, he knows a lot of business people, you know, having lived in Florida himself.
This is something that President Trump has himself talked about for a long time before he was president.