Trump Says 'Cuba is Gonna Fall'

"Cuba is gonna fall pretty soon," touted President Donald Trump on Friday.

The Details: Trump declared his ambiguous plans for Cuba in an interview with Dana Bash for CNN (Lean Left bias) on Friday morning, in what the Justice Department framed as an effort to "combat transnational crime." The president was unclear as to how the island country would "fall," but mentioned plans for it to make a deal with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. His comments follow another major blackout that occurred in Cuba on Wednesday. 

Trump's Key Comments:

• "Cuba is gonna fall pretty soon, by the way, unrelated, but Cuba is gonna fall too."
• "... It's fallen right into my lap because of me…"
• "They want to make a deal, and so I'm going to put Marco [Rubio] over there, and we'll see how that works out."
• "[Rubio] says, 'Let's get this one finished first.'... If you watch countries over the years, you do them all too fast, bad things happen. We're not going to let anything bad happen to this country."

For Context: Rubio said Cuba, a Venezuelan ally, "is in a lot of trouble" after the US captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in early January. He alleged that Cubans – not Venezuelans – guarded Maduro. The US reportedly killed 32 Cubans during the operation, and Trump officials said Maduro's arrest "should serve an implicit threat." Later that month, The Wall Street Journal (Center) stated that the US is seeking a regime change in Cuba by the end of the year as a transition away from its current communist government. The Trump administration reportedly said Cuba is "close to collapse" due to a lack of necessities. Trump reimposed the 1959 economic embargo on Cuba during his first term.

How The Media Covered It: Outlets on the left often emphasized Trump's recent pattern of foreign military operations. Politico (Lean Left) said, "Trump is on the warpath." And MS NOW (Left) highlighted sources who said "the [DOJ's] stated mission appears to have instead picked a target in service of the White House's goal of regime change, and is now in search of potential crimes it can charge." Outlets on the right more prominently noted Trump's deal-making efforts, with New York Post (Lean Right), for example, stating the efforts in its headline. 

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