Rubio Talks Cuba on CBS's "Face the Nation"

From CBS's Face the Nation today:

BOB SCHIEFFER: It is interesting that tomorrow's debate comes 50 years to the day when John Kennedy went on American television and announced that the Soviet Union had put nuclear-tipped missiles 90 miles from the coast of Florida in Cuba. We also know that Fidel Castro, the dictator of Cuba then, still the dictator, I guess, in name, but still the dictator, is very near death, we are told.

I'm wondering, Senator, what do you think will be the course of U.S. relations with Cuba if -- if Castro does go?

U.S. SENATOR MARCO RUBIO: Well, it won't be the direction the president has taken it over the last four years.

Let me give you an example. They have these things called people-to-people trips to Cuba, which ostensibly is for Americans to be able to travel to Cuba, be in contact with everyday Cubans. That's not what they are. They're really tourism trips. I mean, people go over there for salsa dancing and cigar-rolling lessons. And all it is is a source of hard currency for the Castro regime. You talk about Fidel Castro being near death. I don't know that to be true, but I can tell you what's been dead for over 50 years in Cuba, and that's democracy. There are no political freedoms in Cuba. And I think that, sadly, over the last four years, the cause of freedom in Cuba has been -- has been hurt by this additional trips to Cuba and remittances that are providing hard currency for that regime.