Day: February 15, 2026

Trump and Rubio Turn the Screws of Collective Punishment on the Cuban People

We begin with the culmination of seven decades of collective punishment of the Cuban people from a blockade of sanctions with the Trump administration now turning the screws on the island, cutting off oil which is causing blackouts as the long-suffering Cubans run out of food, water and electricity while children beg in the streets filled with garbage that is piling up. Joining us to discuss rumors that Raul Castro’s son is negotiating with the CIA in Mexico City for a regime transition along the lines of Venezuela is Michael Bustamante, associate professor of history and Emilio Bacardí Moreau Chair in Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami. He serves as Director of Academic Programs at the Cuban Heritage Collection, the largest archival repository dedicated to Cuban materials outside of the island and the largest collection of materials on the Cuban diaspora in the world, and is the author of Cuban Memory Wars: Retrospective Politics in Revolution and Exile and co-editor of The Revolution from Within: Cuba, 1959-1980. We discuss his article at the Journal of Democracy, “With Maduro Gone, Is Cuba Ready to Fall?”

Rubio Makes Nice in Munich Without One Word About Ukraine

Then we go to the Munich Security Conference where Secretary of State Marco Rubio made nice European allies without one mention of Ukraine and speak with Charles Kupchan, who was director for European Affairs on the National Security Council during the Clinton administration. He is now a professor of International Affairs in Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, and spent the last 3 years of the Obama administration as Special Assistant to President Obama for National Security. He is the author of The End of the America Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-first Century, Power in Transition: The Peaceful Change of International Order, How Enemies Become Friends: The Sources of Stable Peace, and his latest, Isolationism: A History of America’s Efforts to Shield Itself from the World.

Trump Issues a Death Sentence on Our Children, Grandchildren and the Planet With His Payoff to the Fossil Fuel Industry 

Then finally we examine Trump’s payoff to the fossil fuel industry in which he has delivered a death sentence to our children and grandchildren and the planet by ending efforts to deal with global warming as storms intensify and wildfire rage  and our competitors move to renewable energy. Joining us is Michael Mann, presidential distinguished professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media. He contributed to the award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize and was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences in 2020 and is the author of numerous books, including Dire Predictions: Understanding Climate Change, The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet, and his latest book is Science Under Siege: How to Fight the Five Most Powerful Forces that Threaten Our World.