Bernie Sanders declines to retract positive statements on Fidel Castro

Bernie Sander flubs a question about Fidel Castro

(Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

last updated 10 March 2016

Near the end of Wednesday's CNN/Univision Democratic debate, Jorge Ramos gave Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders his "Welcome to Miami" question, asking if the candidates supported President Obama's detente with Cuba and considered Raul Castro a president or a dictator. Clinton said that she backs opening relations with Cuba, viewing it as a way to bring democracy to the island nation. She called Raul and Fidel Castro "authoritarian and dictatorial."

Maria Elena Salinas tweaked the question for Sanders, noting that in the 1980s he had offered praise for Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega (who is once again leader of Nicaragua) and playing a video of him saying positive things about Fidel Castro, then Cuba's leader. She asked if Sanders wanted to take back his positive assessments of Castro, an especially unpopular figure in South Florida, and Ortega. Sanders talked about decades of U.S. policy in Latin America, including support for many coups. When pressed by Salinas, he said that "it would be wrong not to state" that the Castros have done good things with medicine and education.

Clinton jumped in, noting that Sanders also said in the same interview that Cuba had undergone "a revolution in terms of values," and stating that if those values include jailing and killing people for expressing political beliefs, "that is not the kind of revolution of values I want to ever see anywhere." That got a big cheer from the South Florida audience.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.