Bernie Sanders is standing by his previous comments defending Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
The Vermont senator told Bret Baier during a town hall Monday night hosted by Fox News that “no,” he doesn’t regret his comments praising Castro’s “literacy program.”
“Look, I have spent my entire life fighting for working people and fighting for democracy,” Sanders said. “And Bret, if you check my record, I have condemned authoritarianism, whether it is in the Soviet Union, whether it’s in Cuba, whether it is in Saudi Arabia.”
The presidential candidate said back in February, “When Fidel Castro came to office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing, even though Fidel Castro did it?”
He added that he condemned “the authoritarian nature” of the Cuban regime. The comments sparked outrage, especially among people in the Hispanic community in Florida, which is home to about 1.3 million Cuban Americans and 60,000 Venezuelans.
“He has turned off all of the Cuban population in Miami, and I would venture to say the Venezuelan population, Nicaraguan population, because of those comments that he has made,” Maria Fernandez Gomez, a Cuban American, said.
Raquel Robaina, a Cuban immigrant, also shot down Sanders’s comments, saying, “Literacy is education. Who cares if someone can read at a high level if all they’re reading is propaganda and lies and they have no freedom of thought — that is not education. That is indoctrination. Moderate Democrats: We do not agree at all with Bernie Sanders’s line of thinking.”
Baier pointed out during the town hall that some Democratic lawmakers have condemned his comments on Castro, including Democratic Florida Rep. Stephanie Murphy.
“Of course they did,” Sanders responded, later adding, “So what? I’ve got a lot of Democrats who are attacking me as well. You know that. Nothing new there.”
