Congresswoman Maria Salazar joins Dave Rubin to critique Democratic "useful fools" lacking firsthand experience in Cuba or Venezuela, where she cites a 20-pound weight loss average and 7 million refugees as proof of democratic socialism's failure. She contrasts her successful transition from founding Univision to Congress with the silence met by her requests to defend Afro-Cubans, while advocating for border sealing and her "Dignity Act" to replace handouts with work requirements. Ultimately, Salazar argues that American prosperity stems from individual hard work rather than failed socialist models, urging a return to practical policy over ideological promises. [Automatically generated summary]
Some of the people that serve with me on the House of Representatives, even though they may have noble intentions, they are useful fools because they think that what they're peddling is good for others.
No!
Because they have never had the experience of being or living in Cuba or Venezuela.
Go for two weeks to Havana.
I always tell them, two weeks only.
Make it a week with a Cuban family living with no dollars and waiting to come to the United States.
Go live with them for one week and then you tell me what the beauties of socialism are.
No, because we don't really want the Cuban or the Venezuelan type of socialism, really.
My parents came to that city in 1960, thanks to the United States that opened up the doors to two million Cubans who were fleeing probably the most cruel and the most evil revolution that the Americas has seen since the arrival of Christopher Columbus.
Completely, completely a bad situation.
So I grew up in Miami.
I have an accent because my parents could not find work like many other millions of Cubans
and we had to hop from island to island.
And I lived in Puerto Rico some of the time, another time in Miami.
That's why I speak Spanish and I can communicate with 72% of my district that happens to be Hispanic descent.
So how is it for you going from your district in Miami, which is highly functional, I mean, everything, I'm telling you, like, I have no complaints.
I wish, you're my Congresswoman.
I wish I could come to you and be like, fix a couple of things, but it's working.
Our roads are good.
Our police are fantastic.
It's clean.
There's no homeless people.
There's no drugs on the streets.
There's no riots.
But when you go from that, down in Florida, and then you come here where it's so dysfunctional and so crazy, and just as you said, you're talking to members of Congress who have, you know, their ideas completely backwards.
You know, it's that we speak another language, and I've been trying to, I've been meaning to sit with some of the members that like democratic socialism, and I've been wanting to ask them, what is it that you know that I don't?
I don't know.
Tell me.
Explain to me.
What is it that you see that I don't see?
Because Democrats and Democratic Socialists do not have a monopoly on compassion.
We are compassionate too.
I want to help those who are, I want to help the Browns and the African Americans and those kids that don't have good schooling because I know that education is the way out of poverty.
I want to help them too, but I don't want to, I don't want to atrophy them and just give them money and money, money and, and, and, and give them the wrong incentives.
Well, I have specifically gone to talk to the Black Caucus because I wanted the Black Caucus to help me defend the Afro-Cubans.
That has been my ask.
Help me with the Afro-Cubans.
We're not here to talk about Cuba, the embargo, food.
No, no, no.
We're here to talk about defending the Afro-Cubans.
They are as black as you are.
I need you to help me defend them because they are my constituents, or at least I have constituents that are their relatives.
But I don't get any response.
I do not understand because if you come to me to something that is so dear to me as defending African American rights and Black Lives Matter, but you know Black Lives Matter across the board.
Not only in the United States, in Latin America too.
And you have the repressive apparatus in Havana, repressing those people who are Afro-Cubans and who are screaming and saying, libertad, we want freedom.
So why don't we have the Black Caucus in the United States helping them?
I don't get it.
Well, I think it would expose a lot of their... And I went to them and I went to three specific members and they're saying, yeah, yeah, we want to work with you, then let's do it.
I had Governor DeSantis on a couple of weeks ago and I said, look, obviously I'm a supporter of his and I know how great things are in Florida, but I was like, all right, I got to ask you one tough one.
So let me, let me ask you one tough one too.
As you've seen this influx of people into Florida, obviously we're having a house price issue because they're just 1200 people moving a day.
The original Floridians who said it that do not have the income or the right income in order to.
Well, I've been talking to the mayor of the city of Miami and in my district.
I'm trying to find tax incentives and tax initiatives for those wealthy developers to buy land that is highly priced at this hour and be able to build some workforce and some affordable housing.
And that's what I'm working on.
There are solutions and the federal government can help those in the private sector to make some money and at the same time serve the community.
And right now, I'm not sure what type of journalism we have.
We have commentators.
We have advocates.
And I think that's confusing the public when you are watching the newscast and you think that what he or she is saying is facts and news and its opinion.
I think there's momentum and at least we're sending the message and we're telling the American people that we are here to try to fix the national major economic and social problems, the border.
The border is a major issue.
For 35 years no one has dared to make that a priority and I am because I think I can't do it.
We've got to seal the border.
We have to seal the border and put on all the technology that is out there available to prevent people
from sneaking in and from the drugs and the arms, everything that's illegal coming and going.
Seal the border.
And then after you do that, then review the legal immigration
and review what are you gonna do with the 13 million people who are right now here watching us that do not have papers.
Like, when you hear Mayorkas basically being like, oh, the border's not open and yet we have more border crossings than ever, than ever in this past year.
Whatever the politicians are saying, you know, what's, what's the empirical evidence?
The empirical evidence is that we need to solve this problem.
And like I said, I'm the only Republican member of Congress that has put together an initiative called the Dignity Act and we can review it whenever you want to.
And it solves the problem because let me tell you something, we also have a legal immigration problem.
What does that mean?
That if you want to attract the Albert Einsteins of the world, if you want to Bring the best minds leaving Ukraine or Russia or China You need to give them a visa for them to come in and that legal path is not so easy to come into the United States You know that too, right?
Yeah, so Miami though has an incredible economy right now And we're growing and obviously mayor Suarez has done an unbelievable job bringing me I mean, we're basically the tech leader now in the world and How has that changed the way you've thought about your constituents and all of these new people fitting into all of this?
Well, I think that the system takes care of itself.
And you see right now, you just said of the housing market, now we have more shops.
My constituents are doing better, economically speaking, because we have people like you coming in and consuming.
The market always finds its way.
And, but the only thing I can tell you is that if you love the system like we do, and District 27, some of my people, the people that are serving you and your staff, may not know English that well, but the English is in their heart.
Yeah, but they also, one of the things that I've found, and this is definitely different than some of the immigrants in LA, and I don't think this is, it tends to be more Mexican there where it's more Cuban and Venezuelan here.
Because if you make it for yourself, which is what I was trying to say to the underprivileged communities, I don't want the democratic socialists to be teaching our children that let me give you, no, no, let me give you the opportunity for you to earn it yourself.
and not take away from you that joy and the taste that I made it and that I am a successful human being because look whether it's a landscaping company whether it's a car dealership or like me You know, I made it to Congress!
Wow!
In one generation!
And how do you think I did that?
Because the system gave me the opportunity.
I busted my butt working on television.
Oh, Jesus, did I!
But that gave me the platform for people to, I mean, because I have the platform, because Univision, private sector, they paid very well.
I was on the air.
I was on the air every day, you know, Monday through Friday, eight o'clock, whether I wanted to or not.
I went to work, I went to work, I had the opportunity, I grabbed the opportunity, and then after that I ran for Congress.
What?
Where else do you think you could do that?
Here.
Nowhere else.
In Cuba, in Venezuela, in Nicaragua, in Panama, in Dominicana, in Argentina, in Chile, in Uruguay, Paraguay.
No.
Only the United States.
So how are you going to come and tell me that this is a bad country?
Of course I know that there are some grievances that we have to redress.
Some of the minorities, some of the African Americans have not had the opportunity that they deserve when it comes to schooling, when it comes to housing.
I get it.
Let's fix it and move on and have a better society.
Not like, oh, let's destroy this.
No, what do you mean destroy?
That's what Fidel said.
Let's destroy this because this system is really bad.
And it's an institution and you have another one that it's has been founded by a Colombian who fled and his name and it's liquor something and it's right there and it's a beautiful tapas.
You eat some tapas and you would drink some good wine.
So I will treat you to that one and then you treat me to an American one.