English transcript

Paint us a picture of what it's like on the ground.

What did you see?

When I first landed in Cuba, I was taken aback

by how beautiful everything was.

You know, you got the 1950s cars,

and it's a tropical island destination.

But very quickly thereafter, as soon as we got into Havana,

the main city area where people congregate,

I couldn't believe the sights that I was seeing.

It was very sad.

You had homes that looked like they were bombed out.

Our tour guide at the time said that this was somewhat

of a product of hurricane season

and how difficult it is to, like, repair these buildings.

And I already had known about the rolling blackouts,

and I experienced them later in the day.

And it was definitely unlike anything

I've ever experienced before.

Everything's pitch black.

There aren't any traffic lights on.

Like, it's crazy, right?

But I was taken aback.

I was very sad by all the poverty that I saw.

And then I was very angry.

It was actually Ben Rhodes who told me

that I would get very sad when I first went to...

Former Obama foreign policy adviser.

Yeah. Former Obama foreign policy adviser Ben Rhodes,

who was, you know, formative in the previous

normalization agreement with Cuba

that Barack Obama had orchestrated.

And he was right. It was very sad to see.

But then it was very angering.

It was very anger-inducing, because I felt like,

you know, there was a lot of potential on this island

that we were just robbing the people of.

And it's totally cruel and totally unnecessary.

And it was part of the reason why I went to Cuba,

because I've heard a lot about, you know,

Cuban organizing, the Cuban government.

I'd read a lot about it.

I knew about the island's history of developing sovereignty.

But I'd also heard about this blockade, right?

And I wanted to figure out exactly how this blockade

was harming people directly,

and in many ways that are indirect.

Because the blockade itself is designed to be invisible.

It's a system of sanctions.

It's this, like, bureaucratic nightmare

that basically renders it impossible

for the island to do regular commerce,

just like any other country.

Banks can't take out loans from any other banks.

And you, as an American citizen, as a matter of fact,

have a lot of restrictions on what you can and can't do,

both on the island or if you wanted to even send money.

If you have relatives on the island,

it's a very difficult process to, like,

directly send cash payments to your relatives, as well.

It's totally unnecessary.

These rules are so arbitrary,

and yet they're so damaging to everyone,

to everyday Cuban existence.