I'm Jim DeFede and welcome to Facing South Florida.
Do you remember how just a month ago,
the biggest story in south Florida
involved mass shootings and rampant gun violence.
And then we had the Surfside building collapse.
And that was followed by the assassination
of the Haitian president.
And now we have the historic uprisings in Cuba
and the protest here in Miami.
Well, the issue surrounding gun violence remain,
and later in the show,
we are going to examine what has been done
over the past few weeks to address it,
because that story,
that issue is too important to ignore.
But first we are going to start with Cuba.
Thousands of Cubans have taken to the streets
and dozens of cities across the island,
demanding one thing, (speaking in foreign language) freedom.
Politicians have called on president Biden to do more
to help the Cuban people.
But what exactly does that mean?
I asked Republican state representative,
Daniel Perez that question.
There can never be a negotiation
between the United States and the Cuban regime.
That's number one.
Number two is we have to continue to give the Cuban people
the opportunity to have a voice.
And in today's age,
the only way they can have a voice is through the internet.
We need to understand what's going on the island.
We need to be able to communicate with the people of Cuba.
This is about the people of Cuba,
something that is an important distinction.
We don't need to give resources to the Cuban government
so they can help their people.
There is nothing we can do with the Cuban government.
The only thing we can do with them
is tell them to pick up their bags and leave.
There's nothing they can do to help the Cuban people.
They've had 62 years of doing it and I've never done.
So that goes back to my first point,
one, We don't negotiate.
And number two is we help the Cuban people,
we do that by giving them a voice through the internet.
When you say don't negotiate with Cuba,
what type of negotiation do you think is going on right now?
Well, there's an expectation
that the Cuban government will eventually say that
they will provide certain benefits to the Cuban people
if we are able to provide certain services
to the Cuban government,
if we're able to send them vaccines,
I know they'll go to the Cuban people
and then it'll go to the townsmenship.
And that's just not something that we are willing to do.
There's no resources that we can give
to the Cuban government for them to help the people.
They've had 62 years to help the people.
And they've obviously shown they're not willing to do so.
So I wanna make sure that if there is any help
that the Cuban people are asking for
that it goes to the Cuban people.
And the only help they're asking for right now is a voice.
They want a voice
so they can continue to claim their liberty.
If you look at the videos,
there's tens of videos,
probably hundreds of videos at this point,
there is no Cuban person that is going on a video and saying
international community,
please help me and send me rice and chicken.
Now they're saying international community,
please help me and give me my freedom
that I've been yearning for for 62 years.
That's what they're asking for.
And what is the Cuban government doing right now?
They're taking that voice away from them, Jim,
by cutting the internet.
Okay, but Joe Biden doesn't control the internet in Cuba.
And I've spoken to the governor's office,
and he talked about this idea of trying to see
if you can get some sort of satellite system
that could generate internet access on the island.
It's, you know, even the governor's people say,
this is all very theoretical.
It's not as if there's a switch
that Joe Biden has a control over
that he can simply switch on.
It's not even clear that the technology works
and that it's there.
So, I mean, it's not just something as simple as saying,
Joe Biden turn on the internet in Cuba.
He doesn't have that ability.
Of course not, Jim, this does not,
nothing about the situation is simple.
Nothing about being
the president of United States is simple.
We're asking him to put in some work.
And if that is too much to ask for,
then I guess that's just...
No, no, no, but I'm asking,
what I'm saying is what are the reasonable expectations?
So you don't want. I don't want negotiations.
I want them to be some sort of effort,
which the governor here for Rhonda Sanchez is doing it.
I'm asking for the White House to join in on those efforts
to give internet to the island of Cuba.
You do not want to see Cubans taking to the sea
or having the Cuban government dispatch Cubans
from the island and send them to Florida.
The Coast Guard has been very clear in their message
that they will not allow that to happen.
You're in agreement with that, correct?
I am in agreement with that.
And I think, you know,
this happened a couple of decades ago with George W. Bush.
And you know, if,
and Senator Rubio has been calling this for days now,
he always said it.
He said, at some point the Cuban regime
will threaten the United States,
by saying, there will be a mass Exodus of Cubans
in the thousands that will take to the sea
and show up on your shores.
This is a Cuban issue that has to be dealt with in Cuba.
If the Cuban government allows and pushes
for a Cuban Exodus in the thousands,
or even in the hundreds to comes to the United States,
I hope and I prayed at president Biden
takes that as a hostile act of war,
that's exactly what that is.
They are doing that on purpose.
And the Republican president two decades ago,
which was George W. Bush made that very clear,
very, very clear.
And that has to be made clear today
because at that point that now becomes a national security.
And now it becomes an immigration issue.
And the Cuban people
have to go through the process the right way,
but they need to take care of what's going on
on their own islands first.
Well, what does that mean
when you say a hostile act of war,
what does that then portend
in terms of what the U S response should be?
If they open the suddenly the Port of Mariel.
That would be up to president Biden to decide.
But if the Cuban government
forces a mass exit of its people,
that that should be considered by president Biden
as an act of war.
And what he determines as commander in chief
at that point to do, is on him.
And I will respect his decision on that,
but that is something that needs to be spoken of.
And that I hope that the advisors,
the senior advisors of president Biden
are beginning to speak to him on.
You want the pressure to build within Cuba
as a way of forcing a change there,
because as you noted before,
whether it was Fidel Castro with Mariel
or the Balseros crisis at 94,
when that pressure sorta builds,
the relief valve comes,
Cuban government opens up a port,
allows people to start leaving.
Those who are most angry,
those who are most upset with the island,
those who have an inability to get off, leave.
And then those that remain
can be eat more easily controlled.
That's what I'm trying to get at is,
you want essentially for that blockade to remain,
not just of resources,
but of the people as well to force them to deal with it.
Because one of the things that always strikes me is
the issue of Cuba has to be addressed by the Cuban people.
Would you agree with that?
I would agree with that, Jim.
Yes, sir, I would agree with that.
I absolutely would agree with that.
I don't want them to allow,
I don't want to give the Cuban government the ability
or the excuse to use their relief valve
and let go of those that are frustrated
so they can continue to rule in the island.
I want there to be more pressure.
I want it to be a pressure cooker.
I want the Cuban government to feel that pressure
from their people.
If we were to allow a mass as that pressure would subside,
that is reality.
In Miami, there is this notion that president Biden
has not spoken out on Cuba.
So I went back to see what he has said.
Here is part of his statement from Monday,
The United States stands firmly with the people of Cuba,
as they assert their universal rights.
And we call them the government,
the government of Cuba to refrain from violence,
their attempts to silence the voice of the people of Cuba.
And then on Thursday, amid the calls
to do something about internet access in Cuba,
Biden gave a lengthy statement,
condemning the Cuban government,
assured everyone he would not provide aid or assistance
to the Cuban government.
And then added this.
One of the things that you did not ask,
but we're considering is
they've cut off access to the internet.
We're considering whether we have the technological ability
to reinstate that access.
And it hasn't just been Biden.
Biden's press secretary
called Cuba failed authoritarian state.
And that communism was a failed ideology.
This has been a government
an authoritarian communist regime
that has oppressed its people
and has failed the people of Cuba.
But the most personal statement
came from the head of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas,
who was born in Cuba.
Here's what he had to say.
Let me also add a note, if I may personally,
that this issue is of tremendous
personal significance to me,
my family, my parents, my sister, and I
fled the communist takeover of Cuba in 1960,
as growing up, raised in my family,
I understood what it meant for my father
to lose everything that he had built for his young family.
We stand with the people of Cuba,
and I think president Biden
put it so powerfully yesterday in his remarks.
Republicans are holding press conferences on Cuba,
where they criticize the president.
And Democrats are holding
their own press conferences on Cuba.
It's a shame they can stand side by side
and keep the focus where it belongs, on the people of Cuba.