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If you haven't had time to listen to seven hours of podcast interviews, or you didn't retain everything you heard, here are some key points. I didn't think to do this until just now, so I'll be posting it as a work in progress and updating it throughout the afternoon. That way more people will have a chance to read up before the premiere.
Karishma Patel, 37, Personal Injury Trial Lawyer, Houston, TX -First generation Indian-American Her mom was as a legal assistant, and got her a filing job at her law firm when she was 14. "I didn't have other options. I was basically told I was going to be a lawyer and I didn't disagree."She has watched every season and regularly listens to RHAP. She sits close to the TV to study the inflections on people's faces when something is said to them, so that she can think about what that means. But, her parents and husband don't share her enthusiasm for the show. Asked if it's her dark pleasure she says, "It is completely bright. It is a beautiful pleasure of mine, but it is mine and mine only. I haven't been able to find people to share it with." -Doing the show has caused her conflict. "Not only is it not expected, it's not allowed. It's kind of like being a disobedient Indian girl. You're not supposed to be doing this. What you're supposed to be doing is having babies. But I don't care. I'm a risk taker. I'm here to prove to myself that I don't need to listen to anybody else. I don't need permission from anybody else. This is my journey and I'm going to take it. I hope that people watching out there can see that an Indian woman's value does not come from doing what she's told." -She doesn't currently have children, and she says she has some decisions to make as she enters a crossroads and the next stage of her life. -Her law firm told her they'll replace her if they're able to find someone, and she can have her job back if they don't. "I didn't flinch." -Her strategy is to be non-threatening and play a social game. She doesn't look 37, and she wants to use that youthfulness to be disarming. She wants to build relationships other people believe in. She defines success by other people vouching for her loyalty when they go off and have private conversations with one another. "That means I got 'em, because it's actually the other way around." Asked if she wants to find someone she can trust, "I'm not going to be capable of it. I'm too skeptical for that. I overthink things, so I'm not going to be able to trust somebody the way I want to be trusted... If I do, that's the end of my game."
My take: Oh my God. Poor Karishma. Her story hurts my heart. She reminds me so much of myself in her isolation, her defiance and her deep feelings. I worry that her fear of trusting people could get in the way of her forming genuine bonds. But, there's nothing she can do. Society has made her the way she is. I hope she gets a lot of screen time so she can be a star of her favorite show.
Missy Byrd, 24, Military Veteran/App Developer, Tacoma, Washington -Originally from Georgia. Her family was 'decently poor.' She played basketball for the Air Force Academy because she thought it was her ticket out. -She had a brain tumor. She stopped menstruating for a year and two quarters. "I'm not dating anyone but I have breast milk. I'm a literal cow... I would look down and my shirt would be wet, and I thought, 'Dang you're clumsy. I knew you were clumsy, but you're clumsier today than you were yesterday. But it was - it was - uhh - milk." She had crying fits. She developed a stutter and couldn't look at people. Doctors told her she was just stressed. When her dad died she couldn't process emotions normally. She was about to go to the French version of the Air Force Academy, École de l'air, after graduation but because of her mental instability she was removed from school. The military shipped her to the same Air Force base as Sandra (Fort Lewis.) "I don't want to be there. Super sad. Check into the post office - fuck this. Check into the dorms - hate that." The doctor there found the tumor. She got an MRI and all weekend she believed she might have cancer. Over the next year and a half she eliminated the tumor and the symptoms using vitamins. She enlisted and worked logistics. -She made a list of the things she wanted to do now that she was going to live. "The first thing was go see Beyonce. Beyonce costs way too much money for a normal person to go see, but if you've just almost had a near death experience you go see Beyonce, bro!" She was feet away. She drove across the country. She tried weed. -She had an idea for an app, but didn't even have the computer literacy to use social media. She found a veteran's association and asked if she could intern. "They said, 'No, you should build this out yourself. We want to work for you.' I said, 'No, the fuck you don't. Okay, lemme call my grandma.'" She wrote a grant proposal and won a $1,500 office space in the center of Seattle. "Just to do whatever I want. It was like a laboratory for a child. I had Play-Dough up there. I had a white board... Just mind blowing shit when I could have been dead." -She'd seen every episode of Survivor at least three times. She started watching because her Air Force Academy basketball team was getting decimated, and she related to Foa Foa getting decimated in Survivor: Samoa. She added the show to her list. Josh suggests, "The bugs are eating you because they want some of that magic." -She isn't going to tell people her story until she's in the Final 3. "That's that Final 3 magic." She doesn't want to overly rely on strategy. She doesn't want to win individual challenges. She to build a social game and find ways to relate to everyone.
My take: She's so full of exuberance. There's not a negative bone in her body right now. She's too young and her life experience is too necessarily limited to talk around three years of her life. If she shares her story, the beauty of her perspective will cause everyone to fall in love with her and want her to do well. If she doesn't, people will sense that she's hiding a lot. I think she'll figure that out and course correct within the first day. Since she was at the same Air Force base as Sandra and she was a massive fan, does that suggest she knows her?
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Ronnie Bardah, 35, Professional Poker Player, Henderson, Nevada-Born and raised in Brockton, Massachusetts, 20 minutes south of Boston. They were the only Israeli family in town. 50% of the people in Brockton were from Cape Verde, and he considers himself an "honorary Cape Verdian." A couple of his friends were shot and killed at a young age. -He was a good kid and had a good heart, but he was always hustling. In Junior High he was flipping Oatmeal Cakes and Fudge Rounds for a profit. Slinging baseball cards. Both his parents gambled. They were always at the dog tracks or Mohegan Sun. He had his friend make him a fake ID and got stuck with the name Alaja Jones. He went by Al and started playing the casinos. Quit his job at Sears Automotive to play poker full time.-He played Atlantic City, Vegas, then internationally. He had his first big score in 2010 when he took 24th place in the main event for $320,000. Got to keep $150,000 after taxes. "Poker's a hard way to make an easy living. Lots of people try. We risk every day. You have to get to a point when you can manage your bankroll and I've never gone broke in the 16 years I've played." -In one of the most viewed poker hands of all time, he was bluffed out of a million dollar pot by a supermodel on a poker TV show filmed in Monaco. "She made a sick play. She had no idea what she was doing but all the stars were aligned."-He watched Borneo when it aired and got back into it when fellow poker player Anna Khait was on. He calls Jean-Robert, "kinda a lazy guy...He's really good at befriending multi-millionaires." "Anna Khait... is probably the least poker player out of all of us. She played for a couple years." "And then Garrett - He's a very, very smart, smart kid... Self-made millionaire. One of the very, very few." -He only drank water for 7.5 days and lost 25 pounds for his health and to get an idea of the conditions of the show. He thinks he'll thrive in the survival situation. "People like being around me. I like to fucking bust balls and joke." He thinks old school alliances are a good plan, but you have to adapt. He says that like in poker, Survivor players can have every advantage, but they have to really smell it. -He wants Vince out. "There's an Asian Zeke in there. What value does he bring besides ruining people and getting in people's heads? He's a liability in challenges. He looks like a little corn puff. We gotta get him outta here. Sorry to sound so mean but it's the truth."
My take: Ruuuuude. He has no way of knowing how other people on the cast are talking in their interviews, and may assume the trash talk is standard. If he were playing on some seasons it would be. But, in this particular season it sets him apart in an unflattering way, and it seems a part of the tough persona he's built up to escape a scary situation growing up and enter a fantasy career. We'll see whether his tribe thinks he's a straight talking character or a jerk.
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Tom Laidlaw, Former NHL Player, Brampton, Ontario, Canada -He was with the New York Rangers for 7 years and the LA Kings for 4. Now he has his own podcast, True Grit Life (truegritlife.com). Does it with a friend, Kevin Allen, who writes for USA Today. Does motivational speaking. -Growing up on a dairy farm outside Toronto there was a pond to water the cows. It froze over in the winters and he'd play hockey because there wasn't much else to do. Went to Northern Michigan University - four year hockey captain, ranked #1 team in the country. Drafted as a 20 year old. "My buddy had a horse farm. We were cleaning horse shit out of the stalls. There were no cell phones back then. This is 1978. My father got a call at our farm house from the New York Rangers at the draft. Back then nobody went to the draft - it was just teams. They said I'd been drafted in the sixth round. He calls the farm house where I'm working. They bring me up. He says, 'Son, you've been drafted by the Rangers.' I said, 'Great. What do I do now?' He says, 'Finish cleaning the shit out of the stalls.'" -When he played intimidation and fighting was strategy. There were guys tougher than him, but he could fight and he could also play. Problem was, he fought a guy once, and from then on the guy wanted to fight him over and over. -Jerry Bruckheimer, big hockey fan, called the NHL and wanted to get some players on the Amazing Race. Tom had kept himself in shape, he had his passport. They ended up asking him about Survivor. He'd watched it before but not for a while. He wasn't so sure he wanted to play a game where you hurt other people, but friends helped him get his head around it. He was very impressed by Christian's toughness in the endurance challenge. To prepare for the show he studied how he reacted to different situations, how to control his heart heart, etc. He wants the mental challenge.
My take: Tom really ticked me off when he spoiled a couple of outcomes of this season. That's a betrayal of the producers, his cast and the viewers. But, if that hadn't happened I would like him. He's an easy-going, charming guy. His life experiences are a bit different than anyone else who's been on the show, which is what you want.
Vince Moua, 27, Admissions Counselor, Merced, CA -His family is Hmong. His parents lived in Vietnam in the destruction left by the war - dead bodies, guns, people who wanted to kill them. They went to refugee camps in Thailand. Then his dad became a Montana farm hand. He met Vince's mom in the US, but she came from the same place. -Vince is from small town Merced, California - the 209. Few people he knew went anywhere but the UC system and community college. He went to Stanford, one of only 7-10 Hmong. He realized the significance someone can bring to people from the same community. He tried to be pre-med but realized "no, not today." The issues of access he cared about came well before people got to the hospital. He ended up going with education. His mom was a teacher, "But when I was growing up she said, 'Yo, if you become a teacher Imma disown yo ass.' To all of us. But, that's always kinda been my jam." -He lived in South Korea for five years. He taught English in a town. Then in Seoul ahed worked with low and middle income students who wanted to study outside of Korea. -He's a Survivor superfan, who even mentions on his Tinder account that he plans to be on Survivor. His parents were worried about him doing TV because he's not out as gay to his extended family. He comes from a clan where his dad is the "top dog" and Vince is "the next top dog." In the Asian American/Pacific Islander community when you come out, it's your family who faces - in a sense - dishonor. For a long time he distanced himself from his family, hoping they'd all be less hurt if they found out and disowned him. He always tried to find friends who would be there for him should his parents not be. A year ago his mom asked him rhetorically if he was gay. "I was try'n to go around it. I was like, 'Gurl, you don't wanna know! Yo ass keeps asking!' But she kept asking, asking. So finally I told her 'Yeah, I am!' and she was crying. My dad was like, 'Oh, my son!'" But, Vince is fine with who he is and wants to show kids like him that "let's hope that it gets better." Now his parents just want him to win. -He'd like to play an old school strategy but "I'm not afraid to cut a bitch." With the tribe he's going to be Homeboy Vince from the 209, but when he talks to the camera he's going to tell people "Don't underestimate your narratives." This past year with Crazy Rich Asians, he wants people to know that there are some Crazy Hood Ass Asians.
My take: What a character. Vince has a clear point of view - Hmong, blue collar, gay - which is unique to him in Survivor lore. Even though double minorities have sometimes had trouble fitting in socially on Survivor I think somehow he's going to pull it off. As unlikely as this sounds I could even see him being a Cochran-esque winner.
Aaron Meredith, 36, Personal Trainer, Warwick, Rhode Island -He's very keyed up at Ponderosa. Rambling so fast it sounds like you're listening to 1.5x. He's read four books so far - Relentless by Tim Grover, Can't Hurt Me by Dave Goggins, Iron Cowboy by James Lawrence, Harry Potter. -He was an engineer at a building insulation plant. He was miserable, too antsy sitting at a desk. Couldn't focus. So, he drove up and down the East Coast popping kettle corn - from Maine to Florida - traveling with carnies. Bartended for a while. He'd played college football and baseball, lifted since high school, and he and his friends wanted to get "huge and jacked and ripped." The owner of the gym suggested he become a personal trainer. He ended up working mostly with middle aged women and it taught him empathy. Now he owns two women's-only fitness studios. He puts supportive women around one another and offers them the positivity to seek self-growth. -He's also a party boat emcee. Lights, DJ, bar, drinks. He's an extremely social person. -He'd first applied at 23 - 6 or 7 times over the years. He was in the mix for Cook Islands and David vs. Goliath. -He's been married 7 years and has a 5 year old son. His son is a huge fan of Survivor. Libby Vincek is his favorite player. Kara Kay was his next favorite. Aaron is already sure Molly will be his son's favorite. "He has a type. He He likes the attractive blondes. He says, 'I like them because they have a nice face.' I like mommy because she has a nice face too." The boy was very concerned about his dad going on the show. He said, "Dad, I don't want anyone to laugh at you and make fun of you." Aaron said he wanted to win. His son said, "But you might not win." When they watch the show he'll always ask, "Do they like him? Do they like her?" If Aaron is portrayed in a negative light he'll have to sit down with his son and talk. He doesn't want to play a deceitful game, but he will, because he doesn't care how he's portrayed.
My take: His story about his son is one of my favorites from all these interviews. I hope he gets to work with Molly. His adrenaline is too high. I hope he calms down a lot when the game starts. But, someone so social and sweet hearted who can win challenges and take themselves to the end has got to be a contender to win.
Chelsea Walker, 27, Digital Content Editor, Los Angeles, CA -Chelsea just took the cast photo and they put her in the third spot from the bottom, a good omen because a weird number of winners have been in that position. "Your girl's number three. I got this!" -She's a Jersey girl. She went to the University of Maryland. "I didn't do Survivor: Maryland or anything." She studied Broadcast Journalism. She knew the generic emails for NBC Universal and emailed random people until someone replied. Now she's been in LA a year. She did coverage of award shows. Now she works at IMDB, where she helps Kevin Smith with his show. She just interviewed people at SXSW. -She's been watching Survivor since she was 8. She's cried in every interview because this means so much to her. She's trying to explain that at the point she starts crying again. "It's been such a dream of mine and To be told no year after year after year - these past six years have been a total mindfuck. I've basically been called every single year. I've been to finals three times. Survivor is my one true love, but the one year they didn't call me I got really pissed off so I tried out for Big Brother. I ended up becoming the alternate and got my key being filmed and all of that crap. But I don't like that show anyway." -In September 2017 she was at a WeHo bar for her friend's birthday when, "Oh shit that's Jeff Probst." Her girlfriends all know she's obsessed, so she pulled the waiter over and asked what that guy was drinking. So, Chelsea sent another one over. "I told my friends, 'Take my credit card. Split the bill, because I can't come back after I do this. As soon as the waiter drops off the drink I'm like, 'Jeff, this one's on me. You can buy me the next one at finals.' And I just walked out of the restaurant... That was a big move!" They didn't call her again that year, but Jeff still remembered when they talked this year. -She's been working out at four different gyms - weights, pilates, yoga. Push ups. Memorized puzzles. Reading How to Win Friends and Influence People, which she keeps in.a Bible sleeve so people will think she's religious. She also carries Harry Potter because she would trust someone who read HP. She wants to keep it cool. Make one on one connections. Eventually find idols - and not tell anyone she has one - and make calculated moves. "I don't want to be a Jacob. No offense."
My take: Hearing this girl cry from joy because she's so happy to be on the show makes me emotional. She's a real go getter. I wish I were that damn fearless. Truly, I wish I were more like her. I hope her pure zest for life comes across on TV and she doesn't get stuck with a purple edit just because of her age and gender. I also hope no one decides to get threatened by her as a competitive girl and vote her off premerge. I think she'll go far. Hope so.
Dean Kowalski, 28, Account Executive, New York, New York -Referring to himself in the third person, "Dean is 28 years old. As we mentioned, he lives in New York and he prides himself on being a well rounded person when it comes to interests, abilities, personalities... If I'm listening to Drake and Lil Wayne, I gotta go home and cry to This Is Us.. I can play basketball but also think about our place in the universe." He likes to tag basketball courts with a peace symbol with a ball on it which he makes using a stencil. -He structures most of his interview with Josh around an Outwit, Outplay, Outlast format, explaining why he excels at each. -He grew up in an affluent suburb. His dream was to play in the NBA. He was 5"9 3/4, so he set his eyes on college basketball as a realistic alternative. In order to get looks from colleges he went to a school 30 minutes away - top five in the country, Nike would fly them around for games and give them free Jordan sneakers. He was one of only 4 white guys in the whole school and the only one on the team. He played with Kyrie Irving, the #1 overall draft pick. "My friend said you look like the Make a Wish Kid who just wants to be on the team for a day." He played at Colombia University, where he was co-captain his senior year despite averaging two minutes a game. He became a teacher, then did sales for a tech startup in New York. He now sells ads for Google. -He's a fan, but far from a superfan. He started watching Brenda's season. (He thinks it was Nicaragua, but it was actually Carmoan.) He works with a superfan who freaked out when they had a meeting at H&R Block with Carolyn Rivera and they went out to Bourbon Street with her. He kept watching for five years and thought he could do well. He hates when people are all talk, so he sent in a tape. For the video he interviewed random strangers on the street, who had never met him or seen the show, and asked them, "Why am I going to win it?" A barber, a construction worker. He's going to tell people he's in marketing, not sales - people have sales.
My take: I'm just not that into him.
Elaine Stott, 41, Factory Worker, Rockholds, NY -When Josh asks her not to touch the table she asks him, "You seen that Bart Simpson commercial, right? Don't touch my Butterfinger? I'm already hungry thinking about it." -"I had a pretty rough way to go growing up." Her single dad raised her and her three brothers. She was the youngest. "I was raised like one of the boys. Know what I mean? Daddy didn't know how to raise no little girl." He worked 16-17 hour days. The kids raised themselves. "When little children make their own decisions, they make poor ones." She was a hellion. -She's originally from Woodbine, Kentucky, Nick Wilson's hometown. Her god sister went to school with him and she knows him through the grapevine. "We rode on different sides of the track. 20 years ago he coulda been my lawyer, because I was on the other side of the law. I'm not bad. I've just done some things." Public intoxication several times. "I come from a dry county. It's like Footloose. We cross the state line to get a beer and when you come back you're in trouble." She stole a newspaper stand once and had to do community service. "I was a little bit mean." -She went to live with her grandpa and cleaned her act up, by which she means that she started smoking a little weed and playing sports - basketball, softball, track. She played softball and judo in college. "I couldn't do nothing real technical. We had Brazilians on the team who could do flying arm bars. But if I got these claws on you and got ya on the ground I'd waller you to death." In casting she put this guy Will in an armbar. She was gonna choke him but didn't know if she should. -When she graduated, her girlfriend was a college Freshman so she went to all the same parties and ballgames for four years. Then she realized she needed a job. Now she drives a Ford truck for a factory. She's been there 15 years. She works 12 hours, 7 days a week. -Growing up her mom "was always in my life in some sense. She'd never miss a birthday. She'd be homeless, but she'd still call." Elaine and her brothers bought her cars, and places to live, and got her jobs. "In a sense I've been mourning the loss of my mom my whole life." Once Elaine was homeless herself and there was snow on the ground. It was cold, and her teacher took her in. Gave her Christmas presents. Made her go to prom. Survivor was a thing they shared, and the teacher was gonna be Elaine's loved one. But within a one year period the woman lost her daughter, her husband, her dog and then had a stroke. Now "she walks like Frankenstein" and can't go. Elaine got Probst to talk to her, and she can't wait to watch. In October Elaine's biological mom went into a coma. She was on life support, but Elaine wouldn't unplug her. Her mom came out of it and seemed to be doing a lot better only to die very suddenly of a heart attack. -Her girlfriend and her girlfriend's two sons are gonna be watching. The 18 year old doesn't know because he can't keep a secret. The 13 year old helped her lose 20 pounds doing crossfit to come out here. She wants the money, but she really wants "some of that soul searching, that life adventure, that life changing - some of that. You know what I mean? Gimme some of that soup! Lemme eat some of that up! I want this show to build me up, because I feel like it can. I sure hope to hell it don't tear me down."
My take: About 12 sobbing emojis in a row. She's my favorite. If she gets voted out premerge I'm going to go into mourning. And how can you not sort of expect that? I am going to be so upset if they just dismiss her because she's older and looks out of shape and sounds country. If that happens, I want another Second Chance season next year.
Elizabeth Biesel, 26, Olympic swimmer, South Kingstown, Rhode Island -Josh says that Elizabeth was outright identified by one of the other contestants because they'd been watching YouTube videos about how to be a better swimmer. Others guessed she was an Olympian based on her rings tattoo. -She's from the Ocean State. They lived a block away from the beach, so they wanted her to take swimming lessons. She was a rambunctious child and swimming was the only way they could calm her energy. She started breaking records when she was 7 or 8. When she was 13 she made her first national team. At 15 she went to the Olympics. She got good early. Women peak around 22-23, and she ended her career at 24. You couldn't make much money doing it. She swam one of the longer, more grueling races, and her body said "no more." She listened to her body and retired. Some athletes lose their love for swimming because they're embittered by losing by 1/100th of a second, or they leave injured. She left on a good note. Still, if she could swim competitively for the rest of her life, she would. Now she doesn't know who she is or what she's going to do with the rest of her life. Every hour of the day used to have a purpose. Now her days are wide open. She can't keep eating 5,000 calories a day. "It's sort of like I'm mourning the death of Elizabeth Biesel the swimmer." -She was a Survivor fan as a kid because Richard Hatch was from Rhode Island. In her area "Every single household that had a television set was watching Survivor." When they asked her if she'd do the show, she felt pure joy. She said absolutely right away. She's excited about the competition of Survivor. No heated Olympic pools. You're stripped down to your core. She's amazed by the scope of the production apparatus. She's not a schemer. She wants to be a challenge beast - not the best woman but the best overall. She'd love to have a Wendell and Dom relationship with another woman. But, she wants to avoid the drama as long as she can.
My take: Could Chelsea be Wendell to her Dom? She's so wholesome. She's just so "Olympics." I love her and everything she represents. I'd love to see her rocket through the swimming competitions, lapping everyone else. Go Elizabeth.

Inside Marco Rubio’s campaign to shape Trump’s Cuba crackdown
by (Marc Caputo) via POLITICO - TOP Stories
URL: http://ift.tt/2rAvP4r
Facing President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio issued a blunt warning: the administration’s plan to crack down on Cuba trade and travel was under threat.
Any effort by Trump to make good on his campaign promise to roll back former President Barack Obama’s historic accord with Raul Castro would be delayed, Rubio cautioned—not just from the Castro government and from outside business interests, but from within. It would be studied to death by government analysts who favor more engagement with Cuba, not less. It would be leaked to the news media. Stillborn with a thousand excuses by the bureaucrats.
So go it alone, Rubio told the president during their May 3 meeting.
“What you’ve committed to do on Cuba, what you want to do on Cuba, is never going to come from career staff. It’s going to have to come from the top down. You’re going to have to tell them what to do,” Rubio recalled telling the president as his fellow Miami Republican member of Congress, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, nodded in agreement.
“The career service people, in the state department and treasury and in other places, are not in favor of changing this policy,” Rubio recalled telling the president.
That one piece of advice from Rubio probably marks the moment that Trump’s Cuba policy achieved escape velocity, according to interviews with eight officials who helped craft or had knowledge of the drafting of Trump’s Cuba policy as well as correspondence and documents shared with POLITICO.
On Friday, the president will appear in Miami, the home base of the Cuban-American exile community to announce the new crackdown on Cuba.
The policy bears the unmistakable fingerprints of Rubio —a Trump antagonist during the Republican primary campaign last year who has grown increasingly close to Trump—and Diaz-Balart, also a staunch critic of Obama’s moves to normalize ties with the island nation.
Their meeting with Trump, at 6 p.m. on a busy Wednesday in between the president’s meeting with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and a dinner with evangelical leaders, included top administration officials, underscoring the importance of the issue for Trump. The president sat facing Rubio and Diaz-Balart on the right and left, respectively, of Resolute Desk.
To Rubio’s right sat Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly. To Diaz-Balart’s right was Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and, to his right, was National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster. On the couch behind Rubio sat White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and on the other couch, behind Diaz-Balart, was the president’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner.
After Rubio and Diaz-Balart pitched their warnings about bureaucratic opposition to cracking down on Cuba, Trumphad a simple question: “Ok. How do we deal with this?”
McMaster piped up: “I will lead this. I’ll get this done.”
“That’s when things started moving, started moving real fast,” Diaz-Balart told POLITICO, recalling the snippets of conversation.
Secrecy was essential. Trump’s circle of trust was small.
They wanted to prevent media leaks, fearing that other politicians and Cuba-aligned businesses would exploit any opening. But they were more concerned that electronic copies of policy memos could fall into the hands of foreign agents, including Russia, which has a longstanding friendship with the Castro government. So draft proposals were circulated by paper and hand-delivered between the White House, Rubio and Diaz-Balart’s offices and the National Security Council, which oversaw the development of the six-point, eight-page Presidential Policy Directive from Trump.
In one case, Florida Gov. Rick Scott personally handed a Diaz-Balart memo to Trump as the two rode in the presidential limousine with Rubio to an event in Orlando.
At the heart of Trump’s plan, obtained Thursday by POLITICO, is a clear prohibition on tourist travel and a restatement of the goals of the 56-year-old U.S. Cuba embargo after it was codified into federal law in the 1996 LIBERTAD Act that Diaz-Balart’s brother, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, helped push through Congress when he was a House member.
The directive also prohibits U.S. travelers and businesses from generally engaging in most financial transactions with entities owned or substantially controlled by the Cuban military holding company called “Grupo de Administracion Empresarial S.A.,” known as GAESA. Since GAESA has de facto control over nearly every major part of Cuba’s economy – especially restaurants and hotels in Old Havana and along the famed beaches of Varadero – the prohibition would effectively intensify the embargo.
The GAESA prohibition last surfaced June 3, 2015 when Rubio announced introducing it as a bill called the “Cuban Military Transparency Act.” Weeks later, the House Intelligence Committee introduced a companion at the urging of Diaz-Balart and Miami’s other Cuban-American Republican House members, Rep. Carlos Curbelo and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Though it’s unclear who gets the credit for the original GAESA bill, it became more of Rubio’s central focus in helping Trump formulate his policy.
Opposition to Castro runs in the family for Diaz-Balart. His aunt was Fidel Castro’s first wife, and his cousin bears the diminutive nickname of the deceased dictator—“Fidelito.” Diaz-Balart admittedly had a broader “kitchen sink approach” where he’s asked for everything he could – and made sure to repeatedly stress the broader issue of human rights and a return to the principals of the LIBERTAD Act.
Unlike Rubio or Diaz-Balart, Trump has had an inconsistent record on Cuba.
In 1999, when he was considering an independent bid for president, Trump gave a stemwinder speech where he condemned the brutality of the Castro regime and pledged not to do business there. But the year before, according to a Newsweek report, Trump sent an emissary to examine casino opportunities on the island. And in 2015, Bloomberg Businessweek reported last year, Trump Organization officials scouted for a possible golf course deal in Cuba.
At the outset of his presidential campaign in 2015, Trump said he felt Obama’s rapprochement with Cuba was “fine,” though he thought the United States “should have made a stronger deal.” During a primary debate, Trump clashed with Rubio by saying he was “somewhere in the middle” on Cuba policy while Rubio called for a reinforcement of the embargo.
“Here's a good deal – Cuba has free elections, Cuba stops putting people in jail for speaking out, Cuba has freedom of the press,” Rubio said, an echo of Trump’s Miami speech in 1999. “Cuba takes all of those fugitives of American justice, including that cop killer from New Jersey, and send her back to the United States and to jail where she belongs. And you know what? Then we can have a relationship with Cuba. That’s a good deal.”
By September of last year, Trump had morphed back into a hardliner.
“All the concessions that Barack Obama has granted the Castro regime were done through executive order, which means the next president can reverse them – and that I will do unless the Castro regime meets our demands. Not my demands. Our demands,” Trump said, as 2,500 supporters cheered him on.
“Those demands are religious and political freedom for the Cuban people. And the freeing of political prisoners,” Trump said before questioning whether he hit the correct pro-embargo notes: “Is that right?”
The crowd cheered.
Part of Trump’s commitment to rolling back Obama’s policy stems from his desire to put a political win on the board without having to rely on Congress, where a growing number of members support lifting the embargo and allowing Cuba travel. Polls of the U.S. public at large and even of Cuban-Americans show that majorities support Obama’s normalization policies.
But the White House says that, while trade has increased with Cuba, repression has risen as well. The new Trump policy, said a senior White House official, is based on “President Trump’s core conviction that what the Cuban exile community is asking for is right and just.”
“The oppressors of the Cuban people are the Cuban government who have increased repression on the island against dissidents and Ladies in White since reestablishing diplomatic relations,” the White House official added. “Prior to that, it was not clear to some if the Obama policy toward Cuba would work; today it is clear that the Obama policy toward Cuba does not.”
The White House official said that Trump’s commitment is deeply personal as well, the result of a visit in the final week of the election to the Bay of Pigs Museum in Little Havana, where he received the endorsement of the Brigade 2506 veterans who survived the disastrous invasion effort to topple Castro. It was the group’s first endorsement in five decades.
Still, Trump was clobbered by Hillary Clinton in Miami-Dade County, but he ultimately won Florida by a narrow margin and he credited the Bay of Pigs veterans for standing by him when it looked as if he would be a sure loser.
“He always brings them up,” Diaz-Balart said. “I don’t know if it’s the fact they were betrayed by our government. I don’t know what it is. It’s something that obviously affected him. But he told them and he told me and he told Marco ‘I’m with you on Cuba.’ And I knew then he’s not going to lie. He’s not going to betray the community at large. And he’s not going to betray the Bay of Pigs heroes.”
Trump was so committed to the brigade that he wanted to announce his new policy Friday at the Bay of Pigs museum, but the venue was too small. So he chose a Miami theater that bears the name of Manuel Artime, a Bay of Pigs leader.
The group came up in Trump’s first call with his onetime rival Rubio after the election in November. Rubio, who made a successful late bid to retain his Senate seat after dropping out of the presidential race, was at the local Dadeland Mall with his family when he called the president-elect. Rubio, who got crushed in Florida by Trump in the GOP presidential primary, ran for reelection and ultimately won far more votes than Trump, a point the senator jokingly brought up.
“We have to do something on Cuba,” Trump told Rubio, once again mentioning the Bay of Pigs veterans.
A little more than two weeks later, Fidel Castro died, prompting a celebratory Trump tweet as the news broke the morning of Nov. 26: “Fidel Castro is dead!”
Scott also talked to Trump about Cuba during the transition. Scott, a multi-millionaire and political outsider like Trump, said his main advice to the president-elect was to make one person in charge of his Cuba policy; don’t leave it up to multiple underlings, a message the governor repeated during numerous calls and meetings, including a Feb. 6 event at MacDill Airforce Base in Tampa.
About a week later on Feb. 15, Rubio, Trump and their wives dined together at the White House. Trump, again, brought up Cuba. The two also discussed the destabilizing situation in Venezuela, which has an affinity with the Castro government. But Cuba was more on his mind.
“I want your ideas on Cuba,” Trump said.
The Florida Republicans began circulating Cuba policy proposals with the Trump administration. Diaz-Balart typed up a 7-point memo titled “A Good Deal that Upholds the Law and Protects National Security” that called for more democracy, an independent judiciary and the return of fugitives from justice, including wanted New Jersey cop-killer Joanne Chesimard.
One media report claimed that Diaz-Balart offered Trump to trade his vote in support of the unpopular American Health Care Act that replaces Obamacare in return for Trump’s support of Cuba policy – but Diaz-Balart called the story a “lie.” But he acknowledges talking about Cuba to “anyone who would listen” and handed a copy of his memo to Gov. Scott, who was in Washington with other Republican governors and was to meet with Trump three days later in Orlando at a school-choice event.
Rubio joined Trump on Air Force One for the flight down. He sat in the rear of the plane, which Trump didn’t realize until he walked back.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Trump asked the senator, Rubio recalls. “Come up front.”
Scott met them at the airport and, after they piled into the presidential limo, the governor handed over Diaz-Balart’s memo. Scott had his own ideas, mainly about tone and focusing on Castro’s human rights record. Rubio gave his input and mentioned GAESA as and four other points concerning travel and trade limitations.
“Can you guys put something together and bring it to us?” Trump asked.
Rubio and Scott first thought of writing a memo but then decided it would be best to write an open letter to him that would be co-signed by Diaz-Balart, Curbelo and Ros-Lehtinen. Sometime in mid-March, they sent it off. They heard nothing for more than a month.
Diaz-Balart said he “never had any doubts in my conversations with the president” about his objectives, but he worried government inertia was taking its toll. The exile community back home was getting restless.
“There was a time I was concerned that the business community may have gotten to him telling him, ‘you can’t change it. It’s too late. It’s irreversible,’” Diaz-Balart said. “A lot of the work had progressed and then all of a sudden, it kind of died. And it kind of died because, in essence, the White House folks were pushing for it but the bureaucrats were saying ‘no’ and raising a million reasons it couldn’t happen and couldn’t happen and couldn’t happen.”
Then, on April 27, the so-called “open” letter came back from federal officials with edits that confirmed the worst fears of the Cuba hardliners from Florida.
Where the Republican politicians wanted to call on Trump to issue an action that “freeze” general licenses for transactions with Cuba, the language was watered down to a “review,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by POLITICO. The call to "adopt" the thrust of the GAESA bill to punish the Cuban military was instead changed to a suggestion that Trump merely "consider" it. And an unnamed official struck out their call to make sure tourism remained banned “through the elimination of licenses for non-academic educational travel.”
At 8:17 p.m. Rubio was waiting to catch the last flight home from Washington and called Priebus. “Guys, it’s time to get going on this,” Rubio recalled saying. “This study idea is not going to fly. This is not what we’re going to do. And it’s not what the president is going to do.”
Six days later, at that May 3 meeting, Rubio and Diaz-Balart sat in the Oval Office and together pitched the president.
As the policy took shape, the Cuban government grew increasingly nervous as did businesses, travel groups and Democrats who had lauded Obama’s normalization moves in 2014.
The Cuban government sent signals through the news media and diplomatic channels that it was ready to negotiate and, according to a Rubio aide, it pressured Colombia to weigh in by suggesting it might withdraw from an unrelated U.S.-led Latin American conference that began Thursday in Miami and runs until Friday, when Trump makes his announcement nearby.
In an earlier interview, Rubio said he expected the Cubans would bring multiple pressure points to bear, including attempts at trying to drive a wedge between him and Trump.
“Getting rid of the embargo is their top foreign policy objective,” Rubio said. “And the president’s policy sets them back.”