(Updated) In a speech to the Cuba-Democracy PAC last Friday in Miami, recorded by the Shark Tank blog, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio bashed Americans who have obtained visas and traveled to Cuba in recent years.
"These trips, [visitors] traveling to Cuba. Look, God bless them, I know they mean well. But I have people come to me all the time and tell me, 'Oh, I went to Cuba. What a beautiful place, I feel so bad for the people,'" Rubio said. "Cuba is not a zoo where you pay an admission ticket and you go in and you get to watch people living in cages to see how they are suffering. Cuba is not a field trip. I don't take that stuff lightly. You just went to Cuba and to fulfill your curiosity — which I could've told you about if you'd come seen me for five minutes — you've left thousands of dollars in the hands of a government that uses that money to control these people that you feel sorry for."