The Republican senator Rick Scott released a video on his X account this Tuesday, in which he describes the Cuban regime as "despicable" and issues a direct warning to Raúl Castro: "You will go to prison for killing Americans."
In the audio shared on social media, Scott strongly criticized the government of Havana and promised that he, President Donald Trump, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio will continue fighting until Cubans can freely choose their leaders.
"I have never met a Cuban in Miami who said that the Castro regime was great. No. The Castro regime put his family in prison," the senator stated.
Scott reported that the regime incarcerates any citizen who protests about the lack of electricity or medical care, regardless of age: "If a young person goes out onto the street and says they have no electricity, the Cuban regime responds: you’re going to jail. Don’t have medical care? To jail."
The senator also accused the Cuban government of killing Americans, spying on the country, and stealing from it, describing it as a “despicable government that hates its own people.”
One of the most striking moments of the video was the comparison between Trump and Obama.
Scott pointed out that the current president "is not playing baseball" with the regime, making a direct reference to Barack Obama's visit to Cuba in March 2016, when the then-president attended alongside Raúl Castro a game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national team as a symbol of the diplomatic thaw.
For critics of that approach, the gesture represented a legitimization of the regime.
Scott's statements are part of a sustained pressure campaign that the senator has maintained throughout 2026.
In January, he stated that the regime had "counted days left"; in March, he called for Raúl Castro to be brought to the U.S. for trial; and in April, during the "United for Cuba" event at Bayfront Park in Miami, he declared: "It is important that Díaz-Canel and Raúl Castro are in prison."
The legal background of Scott's warning is specific: on May 20, the U.S. Department of Justice announced federal criminal charges against Raúl Castro for the shooting down of two aircraft from Hermanos al Rescate on February 24, 1996, which resulted in the deaths of four Cuban-Americans: Armando Alejandre Jr., Carlos Costa, Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales.
Scott celebrated that accusation as "a great day" and has since insisted that the Cuban regime is, in his words, "the root of instability in Latin America" and a direct threat to U.S. national security.
The maximum pressure policy of the Trump administration has accompanied this discourse with concrete measures: on May 1, Trump signed Executive Order 14404 expanding sanctions against the Cuban government; in June, the restrictions directly targeted Miguel Díaz-Canel, his wife Lis Cuesta, and Alejandro Castro Espín; and on July 13, the Ministry of Tourism and nine other state entities were sanctioned.
"I will fight. President Trump will fight. Marco Rubio will fight for a free Cuba, so that Cubans have the opportunity to choose their government. And you know what? It will not be the Castro brothers," Scott concluded in the video.
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