Marco Rubio’s evolution amid a growing Cuba crisis | The Excerpt

On the Tuesday, March 24, 2026, episode of The Excerpt podcast: The U.S. and Cuba remain divided by decades of tension. Now President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are testing that fragile relationship. USA TODAY White House Correspondent Francesca Chambers explains the crisis and Rubio’s evolution.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here

Dana Taylor:

Only 90 miles separates the US from Cuba, roughly a one hour flight from Miami, but while closed geographically, decades of geopolitical tensions have created a deep and lasting divide.

Marco Rubio:

Cuba has an economy that doesn't work and a political and governmental system. They can't fix it. So they have to change dramatically. What they announced yesterday is not dramatic enough. It's not going to fix it. So they've got some big decisions to make over there.

Dana Taylor:

Hello and welcome to USA TODAY's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Tuesday, March 24th, 2026. Joining me to discuss the current crisis in Cuba and the evolution of Secretary of State Marco Rubio is USA TODAY's White House Correspondent Francesca Chambers. It's always good to have you here, Francesca.

Francesca Chambers:

Thanks so much.

Dana Taylor:

Start us out by telling us about the Trump administration strategy toward Cuba.

Francesca Chambers:

So President Donald Trump has put Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is a Cuban-American and a former Florida senator in charge of these talks with Havana. Now, we know that he has spoken to Raúlito Castro, who is the grandson of former leader Raúl Castro. And we also know now that Rubio and the Trump administration have also been in talks with the current president, Miguel Díaz-Canel of Cuba. But what is in this potential agreement? That is something that we know what's been under discussion, a few of the things. It focuses on economic reforms and they've talked about an off-ramp for Díaz-Canel. They've also talked about the Castro family being able to stay on the island, but we don't know exactly what is on the table at this moment, especially as the president has talked about a friendly takeover, or as he told me a few weeks ago, it could be an unfriendly takeover of Cuba. He's talked about both.

Dana Taylor:

We've now recently seen attempts at regime change in Venezuela and Iran. About a week ago, we heard this comment from President Donald Trump.

Donald Trump:

I do believe I'll be having the honor of taking Cuba. That'd be a good honor. That's a big honor.

Reporter:

Taking Cuba?

Donald Trump:

Taking Cuba in some form, yeah. Taking Cuba. I mean, whether I free it, take it, think I could do anything I want with it. You want another truth?

Dana Taylor:

Francesca, how should Americans interpret the president's statement here?

Francesca Chambers:

Well, right, exactly. He has talked about taking Cuba. He's talked about freeing Cuba, and I think he said that he could do whatever it is that he wants with Cuba in the end. It's not exactly like Venezuela though, people who are close to the administration as well as experts have told me because in Venezuela, the United States had Delcy Rodríguez, who's currently the acting president, was the number two to Nicolás Maduro. Here, this is an unclear situation. If the United States did want to pursue regime change, and by the way, Marco Rubio has previously testified in the Senate that it wouldn't necessarily be pursuing that as part of its strategy towards Cuba, but it's not clear if the US has identified someone yet who's not related to the Castros, by the way, who would be able to fulfill that role. There's a question about whether or not the United States would accept anybody who's related to the Castros.

The law that was codified in 1996, the Helms-Burton Act, which codified the US embargo against Cuba, specifically says that Fidel Castro, Raúl Castro, would no longer be in government for an embargo to be lifted. Some of the other conditions that would have to be met are freedom of speech, as well as the release of political prisoners that are inside of Cuba. So even if the United States is able to get some sort of an economic agreement with the Cuban government or with the Castros, there's still a whole bunch of other steps that would have to happen here for this embargo that's been on Cuba from the United States for decades to be lifted.

Dana Taylor:

What actions has the administration taken so far? And why do you describe this as a make or break moment for Rubio?

Francesca Chambers:

Well, it's a make or break moment for Marco Rubio because so much of his political career has rested on this. I mean, he interned in the office of the first Cuban-American member of Congress. He also volunteered on the campaign of another Cuban-American member of Congress, and then they became his mentors and he rests on their shoulders. I've heard from friends of Marco Rubio. So this is something that's really driven him his entire political career, but his own parents left Cuba before Fidel Castro took power, and they came to the United States for economic opportunity. He grew up in a community of Cuban exiles. So this isn't something that's just important to him. And I visited South Florida and I talked to some of his former constituents, and they said that they trust Rubio to be able to get some sort of an agreement that relieves oppression inside of Cuba.

As far as the Trump administration and what its approach has been, it has been focused on an economic pressure campaign against Cuba to try and force it to make the changes that it wants to see. Ever since the capture of Maduro in Venezuela, the Trump administration has been choking off oil supplies to Cuba. The only way that they're sending the oil is by sending it through private businesses that exist in Cuba to try and force an economic opening. They've also gotten Mexico to stop selling oil to Cuba as well, which has made Cuba economically reliant on the United States. That has been the strategy so far. But again, President Trump has said repeatedly that if he doesn't see what he needs to see here, that he could take additional action. Marco Rubio himself said in the Oval Office last week that the economic reforms that Cuba's announced in its wake, they aren't dramatic enough. And then he also said that they want to see the leaders of Cuba change.

Dana Taylor:

Can you tell us how this administration's approach differs from the Biden administrations? Where did US relations with Cuba stand at the end of the Biden administration?

Francesca Chambers:

So as former president Joe Biden was leaving office, his administration did a deal with Cuba that called for the release of more than 500 prisoners there, political prisoners. And it also removed Cuba from the state sponsor of terrorists and gave Cuba a six-month waiver from that embargo that I was talking about before. On the first day of the Trump administration, President Trump came in and he rescinded a lot of the actions that Biden had taken, not just with respect to Cuba, but with respect to a number of other things too. So that's a big difference between the Trump administration and the Biden administration. It's important here to note that when Rubio was asked about the embargo, he himself didn't exactly weigh in on it. He noted that it is something that Congress has codified. And he also said that for the embargo to be lifted, there would have to be political change inside of Cuba.

Dana Taylor:

As you mentioned, Rubio hasn't commented on the conversations he's had with Cuba, but how has President Díaz-Canel responded to the latest tensions, which have included calls for him to step down?

Francesca Chambers:

Rubio has called Cuba a disaster, and the president has said that a deal is being negotiated here. But as a yes, as you noted before, the Trump administration has been careful not to say publicly exactly what it is talking to the Cuban government and the Castro specifically about. What Díaz-Canel has said is that they are having talks with the administration. That came after we had already known though that Rubio was negotiating with the Castros.

Dana Taylor:

Francesca, might we see a peaceful transition here? Has Cuba made its demands clear?

Francesca Chambers:

So for a long time, the Cuban government has had a red line about its form of government, its system of government, and political change inside of the country. At the same time, they want to see the embargo lifted. They think that the embargo is illegal. They say it's a violation of international law. But in order for that embargo to be lifted, Congress would have to take action. It is, in fact, as Rubio has said, been codified into law by Congress. And there are certain things that they'd have to do according to the law. It also calls for there to be free speech, freedom of expression inside of Cuba, as well as elections that have multi-party opposition or at least credible steps towards those kinds of elections. And those aren't things that we've seen the Cuban government do.

Dana Taylor:

In 2014, then president Barack Obama took steps to normalize relations with Cuba. The US embargo remained in place though. What were some of the changes enacted?

Francesca Chambers:

During that time, after the deal that President Obama made, he made it easier essentially for Americans to be able to visit Cuba at that time. And he also actually pushed for the embargo to be lifted as part of this, although that obviously did not take place. I actually went with President Obama to Havana when he went down there as part of this normalization of relations that we're talking about. And he met with Raúl Castro and he gave a speech on human rights.

And back then, there was sort of this sense of potentially that there could be additional movement on the relationship and issues with Cuba. What I've heard from Republicans in particular and from people close to the Trump administration that's different between what Obama did and what the Trump administration is doing here now is that the Trump administration does actually want to see a regime change, whether or not as Rubio said that they're going to force the regime change is still an open question, but they have said they'd like to see regime change here. That's something that they're pushing for. Whereas in the Obama administration, that wasn't what the Obama administration had specifically said the policy was.

Dana Taylor:

You wrote that as a child, Rubio told his grandfather he would one day raise an army of exiles to overthrow Castro and become president of a free Cuba. Now as Secretary of State, does the idea of a free Cuba still guide him?

Francesca Chambers:

Friends of Marco Rubio have told me that that is a clear through line in his career, that that is something that he wants to see. It's something that drives him. And even as President Trump, he has talked about the same thing. He has said that he wants to see this. He knows a lot of business people having lived in Florida himself. This is something that President Trump is himself talked about for a long time before he was president, but it's different for Marco Rubio because he is himself Cuban-American. And I asked the president at a recent news conference about Marco Rubio as a negotiator and why the American people should trust him to negotiate this. And the president himself raised some of these aspects for Marco Rubio. But also what the friends of Rubio have said that no matter what happens here, that Marco Rubio is not going to stop until he sees a free Cuba.

Dana Taylor:

Is there any sort of a timeline here? What will you be watching for next?

Francesca Chambers:

Well, the president has said, including at the Doral Summit, the Latin-American leader summit that he had in March, that he wants to see the end to the conflict with Iran, that he joked at one point that Marco Rubio, well, wants a few days off in between. He said maybe it'll give him an hour. So he has signaled that the administration will be turning to Cuba in one form or another as soon as it wraps up the conflict in Iran and we know that these talks are taking place behind the scenes.

Dana Taylor:

Francesca Chambers is a White House correspondent for USA TODAY. It's always good to have you here, Francesca.

Francesca Chambers:

Thanks so much.

Dana Taylor:

Thanks to our senior producer Kaely Monahan for her production assistance, our executive producer Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to [email protected]. Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. I'll be back tomorrow morning with another episode of USA TODAY's The Excerpt.