NBC’s Tom Llamas presses Secretary Rubio about $ 100-million aid package being offered to Cuba by the U.S. amid the island’s worst electricity blackouts in decades and escalating poverty. <\/p>\n
MARCO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Our plan for Cuba is a prosperous future. That’s what we want. It’s in our national interest to have a prosperous Cuba, not to have a failed state 90 miles from our shores. So how do you have a prosperous state where people can succeed? Understand, Cubans – you know this, you understand this as well as I do because of where we come from – Cubans are successful everywhere in the world except one place: Cuba. That’s what we want. We want Cubans not to have to leave that island in order to be successful. But they can’t because the current model they have – it’s not just them – it’s broken. It doesn’t work. And it’ll never change as long as the people that are there now are running it. They are close-minded, unfortunately. I hope I’m wrong. I would love for them to come to their senses and say, Okay, we recognize this really has to change, and it has to change big. But right now, they don’t seem to be indicating that. They seem to be digging in.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n