Senate

Florida GOP senator says US won’t need to use military in Cuba

by Jonathan Carter - 05/20/26 8:16 PM ET

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by Jonathan Carter - 05/20/26 8:16 PM ET

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Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) on Wednesday said the U.S. won’t need to use military action in Cuba and that he thinks the Cuban people will “rise up.”

“I don’t think we’re going to have to do it,” Scott said when asked about possible military intervention on “The Hill with Blake Burman” on NewsNation, The Hill’s broadcast partner. “I think what’s going to happen is, we’ve seen the Cuban people rise up, and that’s why there’s political prisoners right now.”

Scott’s comments come amid rising tensions between the U.S. and Cuba.

The Justice Department on Wednesday unsealed an indictment charging former Cuban President Raúl Castro with murder, and the country has faced an energy embargo imposed by the U.S. after Maduro’s capture. Cuban officials have said the country has run out of fuel.

Scott earlier on Wednesday told reporters the “same thing that happened to Maduro should happen to Raúl Castro,” referring to the mission launched by U.S. forces in January to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. He noted, however, that he did not want to “get ahead of whatever the Trump administration wants to do.”

Later on Wednesday, Scott made a similar comment to Burman.

“I think in the end, Trump’s going to have to go in and obliterate the regime,” the Florida GOP senator said, after noting that he thought Castro would “move to another country and walk away from the atrocities that he’s committed,” following the U.S. indictment against him. However, Scott noted that he thought Castro is “going to end up serving justice.”

“I mean, he’ll go to trial and he’ll, you know, he probably doesn’t have years to live, but whatever he has left, he’ll be in prison in the United States.”

President Trump told reporters on Wednesday that the administration has Cuba “on our mind” but that there would not be a U.S. escalation against the country.

“I don’t think there needs to be,” Trump said, referring to a potential escalation. “Look, the place is falling apart.”

Castro’s charges stem from an incident in 1996 when four men were killed when their planes, which they were using to search for people potentially seeking to leave the island, were shot down by the Cuban military, which Castro was in charge of at the time.

“Nations and their leaders cannot be permitted to target Americans, kill them, and not face accountability,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a press conference in Miami on Wednesday while announcing the indictment.

Blanche alluded to the threat of invasion, though he said the charges were not part of a “show indictment.”

Castro, 94, stepped down from leadership in 2018, but the U.S. considers him to be the effective leader of the country.

The comments and indictment come on the heels of a visit to Cuba last week by CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who went to “personally deliver President Trump’s message that the United States is prepared to seriously engage on economic and security issues, but only if Cuba makes fundamental changes,” according to the CIA.

Rebecca Beitsch contributed.

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