By Alex Leary
Jeb Bush swiftly condemened the Obama administration's decision today to remove Cuba from the list of state-sponsors of terrorism.
"Neither continued repression at home nor Cuba's destabilizing activities abroad appear sufficient to stop President Obama from making further concessions to the Communist regime in Havana," Bush said in a statement. "Today's news is further evidence that President Obama seems more interested in capitulating to our adversaries than in confronting them. Iran's leaders are surely taking note. The removal of Cuba from the State Sponsors of Terrorism List and the unilateral concessions to Havana, before it changes its authoritarian ways and stops denying the Cuban people their basic human rights, is a mistake. I call on Congress to keep pressure on Cuba and hold the Administration accountable."
Marco Rubio: "President Obama and his administration continue to give the Cuban regime concession after concession, in exchange for nothing that even remotely resembles progress towards freedom and democracy for the Cuban people, or assurances that the regime will discontinue working against America's national security interests. I simply don't understand how the President can, in good conscience, continue these giveaways to the Castro regime and how he can be thinking of sending an ambassador to Cuba when there are still many unanswered questions and security gaps that will affect their safety and their ability to do the job that our ambassadors all over the world are being asked to do."
Here's an opposing view from Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa. She wrote a letter to Obama in 2013, after visiting Cuba, urging him to remove the country from the list.