Senate Democrats had one job yesterday: protect a communist dictatorship 90 miles off the coast of Florida from the President of the United States. They introduced a war powers resolution to strip Trump of his authority to use military force near Cuba — including the Coast Guard blockade that’s been squeezing the regime like a boa constrictor on a rat.
It went about as well as you’d expect. Senate Republicans crushed the thing 51-47 and sent Chuck Schumer home with nothing but a participation trophy and a sad press release.
Here’s the backstory. Trump has been using the Coast Guard and other military assets to blockade Cuba — cutting off fuel shipments to the island and putting real economic pressure on the communist government. It’s working. The regime is struggling. So naturally, Democrats rushed to the rescue.
Sen. Tim Kaine — yes, *that* Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s running mate who nobody remembers — introduced the resolution. His argument? That using the Coast Guard to block fuel tankers headed to a hostile communist nation somehow counts as “hostilities” under the War Powers Act. According to Kaine, “we are already engaged in hostilities with Cuba because we are using American force, primarily the Coast Guard, but other assets as well, to engage in a very devastating economic blockade of the nation.”
A “very devastating” blockade. Of a communist dictatorship. And Democrats are upset about this.
Think about that for a second. We’ve got a regime that has imprisoned political dissidents for decades, crushed free speech, starved its own people, and turned a Caribbean paradise into a crumbling open-air prison — and Senate Democrats want to throw them a lifeline. Whose side are these people on?
Chuck Schumer took to the Senate floor to deliver the most Chuck Schumer line imaginable: “The last thing working Americans need right now is another war, let alone one that’s 90 miles south of the United States.” Oh, NOW Chuck cares about working Americans? The man who spent four years rubber-stamping Biden’s inflation bonanza suddenly has the working class on his mind? Classic.
Sen. Rick Scott of Florida — the guy who actually represents the state closest to Cuba and knows exactly what that regime is — introduced the point of order that killed the resolution dead. His argument was simple: Trump hasn’t deployed troops. There’s no war. The Coast Guard is doing what the Coast Guard does. Sit down.
And here’s the part that made everybody’s day — John Fetterman, the Democrat senator from Pennsylvania who looks like he wandered into the Senate chamber from a biker rally, broke ranks and voted WITH the Republicans to tank the resolution. Even Fetterman looked at this thing and said, “Nah, I’m not saving communists today.” When you’ve lost the guy in the hoodie, your resolution is cooked.
Now, three Republicans did cross over — Rand Paul, Mitch McConnell, and Susan Collins. Paul’s vote is predictable because the man has never met a military action he didn’t want to filibuster. McConnell? Who knows what’s going on there. And Collins will be “concerned” about literally anything until the sun burns out. But it didn’t matter. The math wasn’t there, and the resolution died on the floor like every other Democrat tantrum this session.
What’s really happening here is simple. Trump is squeezing Cuba. The pressure is working. The regime is wobbling. And Democrats — who spent decades cozying up to the Castros and pretending Cuban communism was just “a different system of government” — are panicking because their favorite socialist theme park might actually fall.
President Trump himself said it best: “All my life I’ve been hearing about the United States and Cuba — when will the United States do it? I do believe I’ll be the honor, having the honor of taking Cuba.” That’s not a guy who’s backing down because Tim Kaine filed some paperwork.
The blockade continues. The regime keeps bleeding. And Senate Democrats just proved — again — that when forced to choose between American strength and a communist dictatorship, they’ll pick the communists every single time.
At least Fetterman had the sense to sit this one out on the right side. Somebody get that man a better hoodie — he earned it.
