Appearing on the Fox Business Network’s Cavuto on Business, political commentator and former game-show host Ben Stein dismissed the economic implications of normalizing relations with Cuba, calling it a “payoff” from President Obama to his “old lefty buddies.”
Asked by host Neil Cavuto what the US stands to gain by normalizing relations with the embargoed island nation, Stein responded by saying it was just Obama making good on a promise to his “buddies” from back in his “community organizer days.”
“This is a payoff to Obama’s old lefty buddies, who’ve always loved Castro,” Stein replied. “The whole thing has no economic significance to us. It’s just a way of saying to his old lefty buddies, from long long ago community organizer days, ‘See I kept my promise to you, I’m going to be easy on Castro, make friends with Cuba, you can count on me. I’m still in there with the venceremos brigade.’ ”
Stein went on to call renewing relations with Cuba after 54 years, “unbelievable.”
Fox Business Network correspondent Charlie Gasparino joined in by spreading the attack to the New York City Council and Congress, while calling the current mayor: “Comrade Bill de Blasio.”
“If you listen to certain members of the New York City Council, or maybe even our wonderful mayor, Comrade Bill de Blasio, and even members of Congress,” he claimed. “There’s a whole contingent of lefties that think Cuba is good because they provide socialized medicine, and a few other perks, for comp in chicken exchange totalitarianism, and they want us to appease anything they do.”
Watch the video below, uploaded by Crooks & Liars:
