Biden Promotes Communist Talking Points In Response To Trump Cracking Down On Cuban Flights

The Biden campaign responded to the Trump administration’s recent move to suspend all private charter flights between the United States and Cuba by promoting Cuban communist talking points.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced late last week that he had asked the Department of Transportation (DOT) to suspend private charter flights to all Cuban airports in an effort to “cut the revenue the Cuban government earns from landing fees, stays in regime-owned hotels, and other travel-related income.”

“The suspension of private charter flights will deny economic resources to the Castro regime and inhibit its capacity to carry out abuses,” Pompeo said. “The United States will continue to stand up for the Cuban people and against the regime’s abuses and its interference in Venezuela to prop up Maduro’s illegitimate hold on power.”

The DOT greenlighted Pompeo’s request, saying in a statement:

On August 13, 2020, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) issued an Order that will suspend all charter flights between the United States and all airports in Cuba, except for authorized public charters to and from Havana and other authorized charter flights for emergency medical purposes, search and rescue, and other travel deemed to be in the interest of the United States. DOT is taking this action at the specific request of the U.S. Department of State.

A report from El Nuevo Herald, which is part of The Miami Herald, reported that the Biden campaign responded to the announcement by saying that it “‘does nothing to help or empower the Cuban people,’ while Trump’s campaign claimed that the Democrat ‘repeats the lies of Cuba’s state-run media.'”

El Nuevo Herald added:

For Biden’s campaign, “this action only helps the Cuban regime to continue separating families,” a statement similar to that made by Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel and the newspaper Granma, the official spokesman for the Communist Party.

It is disgusting that Joe Biden is now parroting lies from Cuba’s state-run communist media to attack President Trump but it exemplifies how far he has moved to the left,” said the Trump campaign.

Díaz-Canel said on Twitter that the sanctions contributed “to further isolating Cuban families.”

“The hostile rhetoric, the intensification of the blockade, hatred and contempt for Cubans continues,” he wrote.

Earlier this year, Biden told a CBS News affiliate that he would “in large part … go back” to the Obama administration’s policies on Cuba, which means reversing the sanctions that the Trump administration has placed on the brutal communist nation.

“It is disgusting that Joe Biden is now parroting lies from Cuba’s state-run communist media to attack President Trump but it exemplifies how far he has moved to the left,” Ali Pardo, Trump 2020 Deputy Communications Director, said in a statement. “Perhaps Joe Biden is too diminished to understand the difference, but the sanctions the Trump Administration announced yesterday apply to private charter planes to Cuba, not the public air travel that many Cuban Americans use to visit their families.”

“Joe Biden is an empty vessel for the radical left, which is why he will always be too weak to stand up to socialist dictators,” Pardo continued. “Conversely, President Trump will always stand for freedom by targeting the hard-currency that Castro’s military uses to abuse dissidents, prop-up the Venezuelan dictatorship, support Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, and sponsor guerrillas in Colombia. Joe Biden should be ashamed of himself for shamelessly lying to Cuban exiles in order to help the Castrochavistas backing his campaign.”