Cruz Slams Obama’s Cuba Visit: ‘Obama Has Chosen To Legitimize’ Castro

Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, waves as he is introduced at a campaign rally for Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, Saturday, March 19, 2016, in Draper, Utah. (AP Photo/John Locher)
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Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) slammed President Barack Obama’s visit to Cuba in a column for Politico published Sunday, saying “it is so sad … that Obama has chosen to legitimize the corrupt and oppressive Castro regime.”

Cruz, whose father is Cuban and left the island in the late 1950s, wrote that Obama and his “retinue of celebrities in tow” sends a message to political prisoners that “nobody has your back.”

“This is why it is so sad, and so injurious to our future as well as Cuba’s, that Obama has chosen to legitimize the corrupt and oppressive Castro regime with his presence on the island,” he wrote.

Cruz then wrote about how his father and aunt were “brutalized” by Cuban regimes before fleeing to freedom in the United States.

“That freedom can come to Cuba, and I pledge to work to make it so,” he continued. “But it cannot happen by enriching and empowering the dictatorship, while they export terrorism throughout Latin America. And it cannot happen by forgetting the heroism and suffering of the brave souls who have opposed the Castros for so many decades.”

Read the full column here.

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Notable Replies

  1. It’s kind of ‘funny’ (peculiar not ha-ha) that Cruz etal are so WORRIED about a tiny island nation ‘corrupting’ the big bad number #1 United States of America. Yeah Obama, what a rube! Lordy.

  2. Hmmm … tell it to all the U.S. businesses just itching to open up shop there, Senator. Oh, and what’s good for Cuba should be good for China. They are both Communist.

  3. Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China, etc., etc., etc. and you’re worried about a small island off Florida? Really?

    I can understand the frustration as the son of a Cuban immigrant, but you’re running for President now and it’s not about your personal fee fees but the good of the country and world.

    George Bush let his fee fees about Saddam Hussein’s failed assassination of his father lead us into an unnecessary war that cost thousands of American lives and billions of American dollars and even more middle eastern lives and treasure. We don’t need that kind of temperament again.

    On the other hand, nice pic!

  4. Eat it Teddy boy!

    I am so glad to see the Zen chessmaster Obama sticking it to Cruz and small boy Rubio. Better, he’s burnishing his legacy for the history books while at the same time legitimately opening up huge trade opportunities that American business desires. It’s gotta be pleasing personally to Obama as well that in his last as a 'lame duck" he’s been able to move mountains, all the while sticking his tongue out at all his Republican critics who are howling about it.

    Make no mistake about it that even the few Republican politicians who laud this move behind the scenes are furious that Obama continue to reap praise for his singular actions, actions they zero part in enacting. Feel the burn fellas!

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