Conservatives are losing their
minds over DHS Secretary Alejandro
Mayorkas telling Cuban and Haitian
by the way, asylum seekers to avoid
coming to the United States as
refugees by sea.
So, let's first hear his statement
and then I'll give you a little
taste of Conservatives freaking out
about it.
>> Allow me to be clear.
If you take to the sea, you will
not come to the United States.
The time is never right to attempt
migration by sea.
To those who risked their lives
doing so,
this risk is not worth taking.
Again, I repeat,
do not risk your life attempting to
enter the United States illegally.
You will not come to
the United State.
>> So that statement was honestly
reminiscent of what Kamala Harris
told the Guatemalan people during
her trip to Guatemala.
She very clearly said, don't come,
don't come if you're
seeking asylum,
which was pretty disgusting.
And I want to be clear that for
me and for,
I think most people on the left.
We don't pick and choose which
immigrants or which asylum seekers
we want to accept in the country.
It doesn't matter if they're
Mexican, Central-American.
It doesn't matter if they're from
Cuba, Haiti we have a system
in place for asylum seekers.
That system was essentially
squashed under the Trump
administration citing Coronavirus,
as a reason for denying entry for
all asylum seekers.
And unfortunately Joe Biden
continued on with that policy which
I think is just completely wrong
given what we've done to
destabilize many of the countries
that refugees are coming in from or
asylum seekers are coming in from.
Now, with that said,
I mentioned that Conservatives
are freaking out about this why?
Well, this morning I noticed that
the word Mexicans was trending on
Twitter and I'm like Mexicans why?
So, I click on it and it's a bunch
of Conservatives are like whoa,
yeah, you know,
the little the Mexicans said but
what about these communist
hating pro democracy Cubans?
Why can't we let them in?
I'm okay with letting them in but,
can we not pick and choose,
based on, ideological reasons.
This screenshot is
from Sean Hannity's website.
Must see Biden's DHS Secretary
tells pro-democracy Cubans,
do not come to the United States.
And so Daniel, I want to bring you
in Daniel Basner is a historian and
the host of American Prestige
foreign policy podcast so
you guys should check out.
Daniel it's interesting because
while conservatives are like
panicking about that statement.
If you really take a step back and
look at US policy toward Cuban
immigration versus immigration from
everywhere else, there has
been a lot of favoritism for
Cubans [LAUGH] So, can you talk
about that a little bit?
>> Well, yeah,
I think it's important to recognize
within the United States there's
a lot of different powerful ethnic
lobbies that are associated along
ethnic lines and
often organized around DSP work.
And for decades since the Cuban
Revolution, there has been
a powerful, generally conservative
leaning right wing, Cuban lobby or
in Miami and in Florida.
And so there's general that lobby
has been powerful in basically
affecting how the United States
treats Cuba.
And I just want to emphasize that
the United States had never
treated Cuba or Haiti or
the Dominican Republic particularly
well ever in its history from
various occupations and
military interventions.
But the power of
that lobby did inform US policy
toward the island for a long time.
And what's particularly galling
about the Biden administration's
approach to it and
the Republican stuff to me is just
a classic political hypocrisy.
I'm not particularly surprised
about it.
But what's particularly galling
about the Biden administration's
approach is that the one thing
this country has is a lot of land.
And the one thing that it could
actually do in foreign policy that
that isn't some sort of
intervention or
manipulation of economics or
politics is to allow people into
the country, it's fairly low cost.
It could actually be connected to
jobs programs for American citizens
here, relocation programs,
resettlement programs,
things along those lines, but
dismiss it like that.
See, well, first it seems to
indicate that the Biden
administration is trying to protect
its right flank on immigration.
It's basically promoting a more
xenophobic nationalist foreign
policy and you see that not only
with this case but also with how
it's talking about China.
And so we see this basically,
move to the right that I think
has defined a lot of the Biden
administration's foreign policy,
which I would say is defined by
the maintenance of hegemony that is
really the goal of
the early administration.
It recognizes that it can't
overstep like it did under Bush to
some degree under Obama,
particularly with regards Libya.
But it's trying to still maintain
that hegemonic principle of
US Global Empire and again, this is
one of the many reasons as to shame
that Bernie did when he would have
been something different.
But I think Biden is a very status
quo person and this is
a very status quo foreign policy.
>> For the audience members who
might not be as steeped into
political literature or
political science, what do you mean
when you say hegemonic?
>> The idea that the United States,
which has about 750 military bases,
basically controls a lot of
the international institutions.
And has an international economy
organized around the American
dollar, just means that
the United States is able to in
very serious and direct ways govern
what happens internationally.
And so I think what the Biden
administration is trying to do in
the face of relative American
decline, it's not 1945 for example.
The United States doesn't have 50%
of world production.
It's not even 1991 when the United
States is the sole superpower.
There's the rise of China,
the rise of India,
Russian revanches and etc.
With the Biden administration,
I think is trying to do is to make
American hegemony possible for
this new not quite multipolar, but
no longer unipolar world.
And I think if you read a lot of
the administration's actions
through that lens,
they become very understandable.
So I don't think Biden, for
example, will intervene in Cuba but
I think they'll do
what he can to maintain total US
dominance of Cuba.
US control not dominance, obviously
because of the revolution but
US control of the region without
actually putting much on the line.
>> Right, and keeping the embargo
and sanctions in place, I would
imagine as part of that equation.
I also want to just go back
to the the broader story about
Cuba this week, which of course,
involves thousands of protesters
taking to the streets to protest
a variety of issues including
the handling of COVID.
Some, I'm sure are unhappy with
the authoritarian nature of
the government and also some of
the suppression of speech.
But what's interesting is the
overwhelming commentary that I've
seen from the protesters is their
frustration with food shortages and
the lack of Coronavirus vaccines.
And those are two things that could
easily be alleviated
if the United States were to lift
the sanctions and lift the embargo.
The embargo and the sanctions of
the sanctions specifically indicate
this is what was implemented during
the Trump administration that Cuba
is a state sponsor of terrorism.
Right? And so as a result,
international banks are afraid to
do business with Cuba.
They're afraid to finance any of
Cuba's, domestic policies or
projects.
And so,
it actually has had an incredibly
negative impact on on Cuba and
it also prevents the transfer,
wire transfer of American currency
to Cuban citizens, which there were
Cubans in America sending money to
their family in Cuba.
They're no longer able to do that
as a result of the sanctions so
it has been crippling for them.
Now with that- >> And
that's an example.
Just very quickly,
that's an example
of how hegemony works right.
The US government has some sort of
designation for Cuba based again on
this war on terror logic that
George W Bush initiated.
And through that logical hegemony
is actually able to really harm
the island really harm people on in
Cuba itself.
And this is how hegemony works
without direct military
intervention, you could still have
disastrous effects on
local politics throughout the world
by virtue of the United States'
sheer and enormous power.
>> Right,
and these sanctions aren't just
implemented in Cuba of course,
the same tactic is being utilized
in Iran, in Syria and the people
who bear the brunt of the sanctions
are the citizens.
And intentionally so,
because the whole thinking the idea
behind it is people will be so
crushed economically speaking and
so desperate that it might spark
an uprising against the very regime
that the United States would like
to topple.
So the attempt to hurt people
economically is very
much an intentional effort.
>> Exactly, and
I think it's important to underline
that sanctions are not a form of so
called clean war, which is how
they're often presented.
They have disastrous and
direct effects on people's lives.
The denying of medicine,
the denying of access to capital
and things that really make
people's lives demonstrably worse.
And I think that one of the sort
of falsehoods of the 1990s and
even parts of the 2000s were that
sanctions were a substitute and
ethical humane substitute for
a military intervention.
And I don't think that's true and
I think people are beginning to
recognize that they have
disastrous effects.
>> I want my team to get
the last video ready.
It's the last clip in
the story because I
think it's worth talking about.
So, a lot of the messaging toward
the protests in Cuba coming from
conservatives in the United States,
but not just conservatives.
I think the media narrative in
the United States has been one that
focuses solely on the economic
system implemented in Cuba and
of course, that's communism.
And I thought that this line of
questioning during a recent press
conference was really fascinating
because there was a lot of
outrage at how Jen Psaki,
the White House press secretary
responded to this question.
Take a listen to what the question
is, and let's discuss
what the intentions are here.
>> Do you think
that people are leaving Cuba
because they don't like communism?
>> I think we've been pretty clear
that we think people are leaving
Cuba or not leaving Cuba or
protesting in the streets all as
well because they
are opposed to the oppression, to
the mismanagement of the government
in the country and we certainly
support their right to protest.
We support their efforts to speak
out against their treatment in
Cuba.
>> So Daniel,
there was some outrage on Twitter
over the way she answered that
because she didn't give a straight
answer condemning communism.
But I wanted you to react to it.
What are your thoughts?
>> Well, that's some hard
hitting journalism.
I mean, let me tell you that's
exactly what White House reporters
should be asking.
I mean, it's absolutely absurd and
just shows how the problems with
a press that essentially needs to
rely on these types of sources for
their act.
And they're there for
their livelihood.
I mean,
it's an absolutely absurd question.
I mean, one could equally ask,
are they leaving because the United
States had made it impossible to
live in Cuba for decades.
Or something as equally a leading
question from the other side and
to me that exchange just reveals
the problems at the heart of
access journalism of the type that
really defines a lot of
White House coverage which is just
not very critical.
That takes a lot of
the assumptions.