For U.S.Secretary Of State Marco Rubio, Change In Cuba Seems More Like Pouring Ketchup Than Pouring Rum

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio with Katie Miller of The Katie Miller Podcast
Thomas Jefferson Room
Washington, D.C.
11 August 2026

QUESTION:  Hi, everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of The Katie Miller Podcast.  We’re at the State Department today, joined by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his beautiful wife Jeanette.

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QUESTION:  You’ve been one of the toughest voices on Cuba forever.  We captured Maduro out of Venezuela.  Is Cuba next?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  I think Cuba – I am confident that Cuba, by the time this administration’s over, before this administration ends, will be on an irreversible path towards a much different future.  Obviously, like anything else, especially something like this, I always tell people, like, you can’t have something in place for 70 years, it grows roots, and then think overnight you’re just going to rip out the whole thing and put something brand-new into the ground.  There’s a transition that has to happen and a process to get there.  Eastern Europe is instructive of that.  You saw it took countries in Eastern Europe three to five years to truly become what we know them to be today.  Poland is probably the best example.

So I think Cuba will be on that path, well along that path.  It has to be.  But certainly under this administration, given the priority it’s given Cuba, I – I – like, you never guarantee anything, but it’s certainly a priority for us because it’s in our national interest.  I remind people, at the end of the day, like, I work for the United States of America.  I care about Cuba, obviously I have a personal connection to it, but I don’t work for Cuba; I work for the United States.  And I believe it’s in the national interest of our country to have a Cuba that’s safe and stable and aligned with the U.S. – the same feeling I have about Venezuela as well.