On Sunday’s broadcast of ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” junior Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio condemned Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s recent trip to Cuba, offering advice for the popular music power couple to get educated on the founding of Cuba.
“First of all, I think Jay-Z needs to get informed,” Rubio said. “One of his heroes is Che Guevara. Che Guevara was a racist. Che Guevara was a racist that wrote extensively about the superiority of white Europeans over people of African descent, so he should inform himself on the guy that he’s propping up.”
Rubio also questioned rapper/producer Jay-Z’s intentions for the trip, suggesting that he should have taken time to see fellow musicians who are oppressed in Cuba.
“I think if Jay-Z was truly interested in the true state of affairs in Cuba, he would have met people that are being oppressed, including a hip-hop artist in Cuba who is right now being oppressed and persecuted and is undergoing a hunger strike because of his political lyrics,” he said. “And I think he missed an opportunity.”
But Rubio went on to explain that trips like Jay-Z’s do more harm than good by aiding the Castro regime’s grip on control of the island nation.
“The travel policies need to be tightened because they are being abused,” Rubio added. “These are tourist trips, and they are — what they’re doing is providing hard currency and funding so that a tyrannical regime can maintain its grip on the island of Cuba. And I think that’s wrong.”