‘An insult to democracy’: Florida Dems slam Marco Rubio for comparing Donald Trump trial to oppression in Cuba

The Florida Democratic Party (FDP) is accusing U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of politicizing the hardship of Cuban people when he likened a New York jury’s guilty verdict of Donald Trump to oppression under Fidel Castro’s communist regime.

FDP Chair Nikki Fried called his comments an affront to America and people from the nearby island nation that call it home today.

“Marco Rubio just compared the United States judicial system to trials in an authoritarian country like Cuba, where the courts serve the regime,” she said in a statement.

“It is an insult to democracy and the legitimate institutions in our nation. It is also offensive to the Cuban American community.”

Rubio appeared Thursday on Fox News’ “Hannity” shortly after jurors found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.

Many political and legal experts, including Trevor Potter, President of the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center, have long said the central reason for the payment was to avert another Trump sex scandal ahead of Election Day. Prosecutors in the hush money case said that equated to “election interference.”

But according to Rubio, that’s precisely what Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Judge Juan Merchant and the 12 citizens who unanimously found Trump guilty are guilty of themselves.

“This is the quintessential show trial. This is what you see in communist countries. This is what I grew up having people in this community tell me about, what happened in the days after the Castro revolution. Obviously, those led to executions. This, on the other hand, is an effort to interfere in the election,” said Rubio, who was born in Miami to Cuban parents who immigrated to the U.S. two and a half years before Castro took power.

“We cannot become one of those countries where people, once they leave office, are targeted through the court system by their political opponents. That’s what happens in Peru. That’s what’s happened in Brazil. That’s what happens in all these countries. It cannot happen here, and that is the direction we are headed right now.”

Fried said the comparison by Rubio, who is among those being discussed as a potential running mate for Trump, was inappropriate.

“Republicans continue to use the pain of the Cuban people and Cubans in exile who do not have legal and fair representation in their country,” she said. “Instead of respecting their pain, they are playing political games.”

Florida has the highest concentration of Cuban Americans in the country. And of the 2 million living in the state as of 2023, 1.2 million reside in Rubio’s home county of Miami-Dade, which has followed a statewide trend of shifting more conservative over the past decade. Most Cuban American voters identify as Republicans.

Polling last month by Coral Gables-based consulting firm Miranda Advocacy found that in Miami-Dade, Florida’s most populous county, Trump holds a 3-point lead over President Joe Biden.

That result comported with a survey the University of North Florida conducted in mid-April, which found Trump had a 2-point edge among voters nationwide. Notably, the questionnaire included queries about Trump’s ongoing legal issues, with a sizable portion of respondents saying they’d be disinclined to vote for the former President if he’s convicted in any of his pending criminal cases.

But an internal poll released Thursday by Christian Ulvert, the senior campaign adviser to Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, shows that support for Trump is crumbling fast. Ulvert found Biden holds an 11-point lead over Trump, with 51% of likely voters saying they plan to back Biden compared to 39% who want to send Trump back to the White House.