‘He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing? ‘…
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Democratic frontrunner Bernie Sanders doubled down on comments he made in the 1980s when he praised the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, arguing he still supports some elements of Cuba’s communist regime.
In an interview with “60 Minutes,” Sanders admitted his campaign is “very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba,” before adding: “But it’s unfair to say that everything is bad.”
Bernie Sanders defends his 1980s comments about Fidel Castro in an interview on 60 Minutes. https://t.co/ySqvQKoiBU pic.twitter.com/lTwuXWp9sA
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) February 24, 2020
“When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing? Even though Fidel Castro did it?” Sanders explained.
Sanders’s comments were made in response to a question about a speech he made in 1986, in which he blasted the U.S.’s efforts to prevent the spread of communism in Cuba.
“I remember, for some reason or another, being very excited when [former Cuban dictator] Fidel Castro made the revolution in Cuba,” he said, while speaking at the University of Vermont in 1986. “I was a kid … and it just seemed right and appropriate that poor people were rising up against rather ugly rich people.”
Sanders added in his speech that he wanted to “puke” when former President John F. Kennedy and his Republican opponent, former President Richard Nixon, both said the U.S. should be tougher on Cuba.
“For the first time in my adult life, what I was seeing is the Democrats and Republicans … clearly that there really wasn’t a whole lot of difference between the two,” Sanders said at the time.
Republicans were quick to condemn Sanders’s open defense of Castro’s brutal and totalitarian regime.
It really makes a difference when those you murder at the firing squad can read & write. https://t.co/4DKbSKpI6t
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) February 24, 2020