Lis Cuesta Peraza, wife of Miguel Díaz-Canel, appeared alongside the president in one of the images captured during the recording of the interview he gave to NBC News' "Meet the Press" program.
The recording took place at the José Martí Memorial in Havana, in the Plaza de la Revolución. The images published by the Presidency of Cuba on social media show Lis Cuesta wearing a white and blue dress, accompanying her husband and personally greeting journalist Kristen Welker, with inscriptions of the hero José Martí in the background.
Her presence was the detail that generated the most comments on social media, even more than the political content of the interview.
The first highlighted comment on the Facebook post from the Presidency of Cuba states: "But Machi is by his side. Was the interview like couples therapy?" Another user directly asked: "And if the interview was with the president, what was Machi doing there?"
"La Machi" is the nickname by which Cubans popularly refer to Lis Cuesta, who, despite having publicly rejected the title of First Lady for considering it "not only bourgeois but also patriarchal," effectively fulfills that role in official acts.
The interview with Welker is the first appearance of a Cuban leader on American television in decades, since Fidel Castro was interviewed on "Meet the Press" in 1959.
The content of the interview also sparked controversy. When asked if he would resign to save the country, Díaz-Canel responded that "resignation is not part of his vocabulary" and countered the journalist's question by asking: Do you ask that question to Donald Trump?
So far, only fragments of the recording have been seen. Reactions on Facebook included criticisms of the regime, irony, and calls for free elections.
"Will they put this interview on the roundtable? Unedited, of course... they could take advantage of the fact that there's no power right now," wrote a netizen.
The interview was partially broadcast this Friday at 4 p.m. Eastern Time, on "Meet the Press NOW" and "NBC Nightly News." The extended version is scheduled for this Sunday on "Meet the Press" and in its entirety on the NBC News website.
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