Rubio dodges direct question on whether US plans to invade Cuba

Secretary of State Marco Rubio refused to provide a clear answer Wednesday when asked directly whether the Trump administration plans to invade Cuba.

Rubio appeared before Congress for the second consecutive day as part of the executive branch's efforts to defend its $2.2 trillion budget request for 2027. His prepared talking points came to an abrupt halt when Representative Jonathan Jackson posed a yes-or-no question: whether the White House will invade Cuba.

"In closing, I'd like to ask you, will you invade Cuba?" Jackson asked.

"Well, I have one second to answer. What do I do?" Rubio responded.

"Will you invade Cuba?" Jackson pressed.

"That's not the only thing you said," Rubio said, before committee Chairman Brian Mast intervened.

Rubio never provided further explanation of the president's aims for Cuba. However, attacking the Communist Caribbean nation has not been ruled out.

Trump's Previous Statements

In March, Donald Trump told reporters at the White House — while Cuba was struggling with an unprecedented economic crisis worsened by America's Venezuelan oil blockade — that he expected to have the "honor" of "taking Cuba in some form."

"I do believe I'll be … having the honor of taking Cuba. That's a big honor. Taking Cuba in some form," Trump said at the time. "I mean, whether I free it, take it. Think I can do anything I want with it. You want to know the truth."

Shift in White House Stance

Months later, in May, White House officials told Politico that what had originated as mild musings had since evolved into genuine interest inside the Oval Office.

"The mood has definitely changed," a person familiar with the White House's discussions said. "The initial idea on Cuba was that the leadership was weak and that the combination of stepped-up sanctions enforcement, really an oil blockade, and clear U.S. military wins in Venezuela and Iran would scare the Cubans into making a deal. Now Iran has gone sideways, and the Cubans are proving much tougher than originally thought. So now military action is on the table in a way that it wasn't before."

The conversations took place around the same time that the Justice Department indicted Cuba's former President Raúl Castro, sparking concerns that the Trump administration would extract and abduct him as it did former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

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Treasury Secretary Bessent Refuses to Acknowledge Trump's Stock Trading Conflicts

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent repeatedly refused to acknowledge Donald Trump's stock trading as a conflict of interest under fierce questioning by Senator Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday.

During a Senate Finance Committee hearing, Warren pressed Bessent for pushing to end congressional stock trading, while Trump made more than 3,400 stock trades worth more than a quarter of a billion dollars in the first three months of 2026 alone.

"So, Secretary Bessent, you and I agree that it is a conflict of interest for members of Congress to trade stocks. Do you also agree that it's a conflict of interest for President Trump to trade stocks?" Warren asked.

"President Trump is not sitting in the Oval Office engaging in high frequency trading strategy, clearly he had an outside manager who was doing that," Bessent said. "I think it's incumbent upon both houses of Congress to get their house in order before you move to the administrative branch—"

"You're a Wall Street guy, so you know better," Warren said. "The investments that President Trump has made are not blind."

The Massachusetts Democrat explained that Trump had signed a 113-page document listing all of his individual stock trades, while simultaneously making policy decisions that affected those stocks.

"So you're going to sit here with a straight face and say it's not a conflict of interest for the president of the United States to do that?" she asked.

"I am going to say this body needs to get its house in order first, I would encourage you to do that—" Bessent said.

"I don't trade in individual stocks. I don't own any individual stocks," Warren said. "My house is in order, thank you Mr. Secretary."

Warren questioned Bessent about Trump's purchase of between $500,000 and $1 million worth of individual stocks.