RUSH: I’m kind of torn here ’cause I’ve really got some interesting callers on and I’ve gotta do this Marco Rubio response to Tom Harkin because he just nails Harkin, and this is classic. So I’m gonna try to get a lot of stuff done here. Let’s start with Harkin. This was late Monday afternoon on the Senate floor. Harkin just got back from Cuba, and he’s singing their praises.
HARKIN: When a woman gets pregnant in Cuba, she gets visited immediately, well, soon as they know about it. She gets visited by a nurse. She gets visited by health officials who put her on a better diet, make sure she doesn’t smoke, provide supportive services for her during her pregnancy, make sure that there’s someone there for the birth, and that child is — everything is just covered from the earliest time of pregnancy through early childhood.
RUSH: It’s a paradise, why, it’s an absolute paradise. Do you believe that excrement? When they find out that a woman is pregnant in Cuba — how often do they find out? When they find out she gets visited immediately. Well, as soon as they know about it, she gets visited by a nurse, a health official who puts her on a better diet. No way do we care as much as the Cubans do, see. They do it right. We don’t care at all. We’re insensitive. We don’t have any prenatal care, postnatal care. We don’t have any kind of care. But the Cubans, they do it right because in Cuba, medicine is a public government service.
HARKIN: One of the key features of what Cuba has done is they have made the practice of medicine a public service, a public service, in all aspects, whether you’re a doctor or a surgeon or a nurse or various other health practitioners. It is a public service. The life span is now even longer than ours in the United States.
RUSH: Just not true. I mean, this is just incredible. Cuba is a hellhole. It is so backward the infrastructure is falling apart. The newest car you can get is a ’57 Chevy. Well, maybe some of the limousines for the mob that’s going back in there to set up casinos now at some of the hotels. But, I mean, this is just — did you hear that medicine is a public service. Yes, there’s no profit in it. It’s just people who care. Government people who care, from the surgeons to the nurses, to various other health practitioners, it’s just people who care, it’s a public service. And you know what? You know what? Everything is free in Cuba.
HARKIN: Every one of these students are going to medical school, and you know what it costs them? Zero. Not one cent. The 108 students that are there, pay nothing. We have over 90 graduates of this school back here in America right now. And that’s another thing, whenever we traveled all over Cuba, I went to the clinics, and I talked to health people, I’d always ask them, “What did it cost you to go to the school? Do you have student debt?” No. Medical school is free. There is no cost to going to medical school. None whatsoever.
RUSH: It’s a paradise. It’s a literal paradise. The people involved in health care don’t get paid because it’s a public service. They just care. The students don’t get paid because it doesn’t cost them to become doctors and nurses. There is no debt. Everybody just does for everybody else because they care. Everything is public service, and everything is free, and they’re living longer. Well, Marco Rubio was watching this in his office, and he literally charged to the Senate floor and rebutted this.
RUBIO: A few moments ago the body was treated to a report from the senator from Iowa about his recent trip to Cuba. It sounded like he had a wonderful trip visiting what he described as a real paradise. I heard him also talk about these great doctors that they have in Cuba, and I have no doubt they’re very talented; I’ve met a bunch of them. You know where I met them? In the United States, because they defected. Because, in Cuba, doctors would rather drive a taxicab or work in a hotel than be a doctor. I wonder if they spoke to him about the outbreak of cholera that they’ve been unable to control, or about the three-tiered system of health care that exists, where foreigners and government officials get a health care much better than that that’s available to the general population.
RUSH: That’s probably what they showed Harkin. And, Rubio, he wasn’t finished.
RUBIO: Who are Cuba’s allies in the world? North Korea; before he fell, the dictator in Libya; the dictator in Syria; the tyrant in Moscow. This is who they line up with. This is this wonderful paradise? By the way, this in and of itself deserves attention, what’s happening in Venezuela, in our own hemisphere. It’s shameful that only three heads of state in this hemisphere have spoken up forcefully against what’s happening. It is shameful that many members of Congress who traveled to Venezuela and were friendly with Chavez — some even went to his funeral — sit by saying nothing while this is happening, in our own hemisphere. And this wonderful Cuban paradise government that we heard about? This is what they support.
RUSH: If it’s such a paradise, why isn’t everybody going there?
RUBIO: We have to listen to what a paradise Cuba is. Well, I wonder, how come I never read about boatloads of American refugees going to Cuba? Why don’t any American doctors defect to Cuba, if it’s such a paradise? If America and its policy makers are not gonna be firmly on the side of freedom and liberty, who in the world is? Who on this planet will? If this nation is not firmly on the side of human rights and freedom and the dignity of all people, what nation on the earth will? And if we are prepared to walk away from that then I submit to you that this century is gonna be a dangerous and dark one.
RUSH: That wasn’t the best of what he had to say, though. He said, “Let me tell you what the Cubans are really good at, because they don’t know how to run their economy. They don’t know how to build. They don’t know how to govern a people. What they’re really good at is repression.”
He cited a poll. “More Americans want normal relations with Cuba. So do I — a democratic and free Cuba. But you want us to reach out and develop friendly relationships with a serial violator of human rights, who supports whatÂ’s going on in Venezuela and every other atrocity on the planet? On issue after issue, they are always on the side of the tyrants. Look it up. And this is who we should be opening up to? Why donÂ’t they change? Why doesnÂ’t the Cuban government change? Why doesnÂ’t the Venezuelan government change?”
Why is it up to us to change? Why is it they are the beacon and we are the problem?
“But hereÂ’s the great news. I donÂ’t know if they get C-SPAN in Cuba. I bet you the government people do. I hope you see that in America, weÂ’re a free society. YouÂ’re allowed to come on the floor and youÂ’re allowed to say and spread whatever you want. You think CubaÂ’s a paradise? You think itÂ’s an example and a model that we should be following? YouÂ’re free to say that, here, in the press and anywhere you want. But weÂ’re also free to come here and tell the truth. WeÂ’re also free to come here and denounce the violations of human rights and brutality.”
Just made mince of it. But here, you heard Harkin, this guy’s in love. He’s literally in love, blinded and obsessed, because it’s socialism, which history proves is a dismal failure everywhere it’s tried: Ukraine, Venezuela, Cuba, Detroit. This is absolute insanity to listen to Tom Harkin go on and on and on with such love for Cuba, what a paradise it is. But it isn’t. We haven’t had communism blasted like Rubio did it by an elected official in I don’t know how long. Certainly since the days of Reagan. We have not had an elected official in public bash a communist regime like this in I can’t tell you how long.
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