Florida Democrats slammed President Joe Biden for his Tuesday executive order delisting Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, saying the move will further erode the party’s standing in the red state, Axios reported.
“This is Joe Biden literally sinking the Democratic Party in the state of Florida. Big time. Just as we try to patch the hole in the boat, Biden punches another hole in it,” said Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz, adding that members of South Florida’s congressional delegation share his frustration.
Florida’s Democratic leaders fear Biden’s move will cast their party as sympathetic to socialist regimes—a damaging narrative in a state with many Hispanic voters who have fled leftist governments like Cuba’s, Axios reported. Hispanic voters make up nearly 20 percent of Florida’s electorate and have helped drive Republican victories in the state.
Biden’s move to lift Cuba’s status as a state sponsor of terrorism is a “slap in the face … to the broader diaspora community in Miami-Dade and across our nation that have sadly been forced to flee dictatorship and violence,” former state Sen. Annette Taddeo (D.) said. Miami-Dade, the largest county in the state, has the highest concentration of Hispanic voters, according to Axios.
Florida Democratic Party chairwoman Nikki Fried was “blindsided” and “enraged” by Biden’s decision, according to Axios.
Democratic political consultant Christian Ulvert said Biden “delivered a master class of what not to do.” John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, described the timing of Biden’s decision as “a Harvard textbook case of political malpractice.”
Biden’s team said the order was part of a broader deal securing the release of 553 prisoners from Cuba. The Trump administration plans to not only reinstate the sanctions on Cuba but make them “bigger and harder, with broader effects than last time,” said Mauricio Claver-Carone, Donald Trump’s incoming envoy to Latin America.
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