NY Times Claps Back at Marco Rubio for Attacking Cuba Report as ‘Fake’

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

The New York Times clapped back at Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday defending its reporting as “real and accurate” after he lashed out at a report that Trump administration negotiators wanted Cuba’s president pushed from power.

The article, published on Monday, cited four individuals familiar with the talks and included revelations that negotiators demanded that President Miguel Díaz-Canel, the leader of the Cuba’s communist government, would need to go during talks as the island grapples with fuel shortages and a power grid outage.

Some officials within the Trump administration believe removing the president could open the door to sweeping economic reforms in Cuba, arguing that Díaz-Canel, viewed by them as a hardliner, would be unlikely to back such changes, one source said.

President Donald Trump signaled he intends to intensify focus on Cuba following operations against Iran and floated the idea of a “friendly takeover” of the island, suggesting Rubio would oversee the effort.

Reacting to the New York Times report on Tuesday, Rubio, however, denied that such a demand had been made of Cuba, calling the newspaper’s sources “charlatans & liars” and the story “fake.”

In a statement released on Wednesday, The New York Times spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander addressed Rubio directly, countering that when journalists contacted the State Department “well before publication” that federal officials “received no disagreement” when asked about the claims.

Díaz-Canel has served as Cuba’s president since 2018 and has two years remaining in his current presidential term. He became the first leader since the 1959 revolution whose surname is not Castro to govern the island after being chosen as the successor to former President Raúl Castro, brother of Fidel Castro.

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