Is Cuba On The Brink Of Collapse?

I'm Jason Chafetz.

I'm Ainsley Earhart.

I'm Brian Kilmeade, and this is The Fox News Run Down.

Wednesday, March 25th, 2026, I'm Dave Anthony.

His regime change coming to Cuba.

President Trump calls it a failed nation.

And his talks continue.

Cuba's leader is now offering to open the country up

to investment from the US.

We cannot be fooled by these type of announcements

that we hear.

This is not capitalism.

All of a sudden, arriving in Cuba,

they're just trying to figure out a way to inject money

into the island since they are starving.

I'm Jessica Brosenthal.

Fentanyl Overdoses and shipments of the drug

across the border are down.

And yet, it's still a top level priority

for law enforcement.

As states, watch traffickers use foreign apps.

They can't track.

When I talk to our investigators and our prosecutors,

when they talk about fentanyl, they say,

general, it is in everything.

And if you are not getting your pill, your prescription

from across the counter, then you

are taking your life in your own hands.

And I'm Joy Bram.

I've got the final word on the Fox News rundown.

Life is getting harder in Cuba.

There are fuel shortages and power blackouts.

Now that Venezuela has been cut off,

and Russia has been really curtailed,

then they find themselves in the situation

that nobody, they don't have a sugar daddy anymore.

And so they can't maintain their economy

because it doesn't work.

That's Republican Congressman Carlos Semones

was born in Cuba, but his family fled to Florida

when the communist regime came into power.

It's a failed nation.

They have no money.

They have no oil.

They have nothing.

President Trump has essentially cut off Cuba's foreign oil

supply with threats to put tariffs on any country that

supplies it.

And the other day, Fox's Peter Ducey asked the president,

is Cuba, whatever you do with the military there,

seems like something?

Will that look more like a ran or that as well?

Can't tell you that I can tell you

that they're talking to us.

But we don't know much about those US Cuba talks.

At the same time, something historic is happening, right?

The situation in Cuba is just worsening.

Andrella Narez is an anchor for Fox Noticias,

which airs at 4 p.m. Eastern on Fox Deportes.

And it's on the Fox Noticias YouTube channel.

And sometimes when I talk about this with people,

they say, but it's been bad all along.

It's been 67 years of this.

But you have to have all the pieces of the puzzle,

like the stars aligned for this moment

to potentially happen.

And I'm referring to this possible regime change

or the collapse that President Donald Trump has been

talking so much about.

And why do I say this?

This is what's been taking place.

No oil imports in three months.

This has been happening ever since President Trump

and the United States conducted this operation in Venezuela

to capture Nicolas Maduro.

And we know that Venezuela was Cuba's lifeline.

So Cuba has not been receiving oil.

There have been already three blackouts in just a month

leaving about 11 million people in complete darkness.

At the same time, this maximum pressure

being applied by the Trump administration,

the island is now not just economically isolated,

but also diplomatically isolated.

And I say this because we are also

seeing an ideological shift to the right in the region.

Many conservative leaders in Latin America

are strengthening their cooperation with Washington.

We just saw this during the Shield of the America's summit.

And Ecuador, for example, just recently,

expelled Cuba's ambassador in their capital city

in Keto and expelled the rest of the diplomatic personnel.

Costa Rica was the most recent one to take this action as well.

They closed its embassy in Havana and also told Cuba's communist government

to pull its diplomats from San Jose.

What did Costa Rica's president Rodrigo Chavez say?

We have to clean out communists from the hemisphere.

What does President Trump ultimately want?

Does he want President Miguel Diaz Canal out of power?

Is that what he's aiming for?

Reports suggest he wants regime change.

Some say it could collapse on its own.

Others say we want military intervention.

There are Cuban Americans who want military intervention

as long as there's regime change.

We don't exactly know.

There's also suggestions of Miguel Diaz Canal being the one

to step down and then talking to another figure

from the Castro family.

We have heard the name of role Castro's grandson,

Raulito, known as El Canguero, the crab.

But when you speak to congressmen, Carlos Jimenez,

and other just Republicans in general,

they say absolutely we cannot allow this to happen.

It cannot be the Castro or Miguel Diaz Canal.

They all have to be out.

And so tell me back up a little bit on Castro.

How hard line would he be?

Obviously, Fidel Castro was the one that led the revolution in that.

Yeah, 1959.

And so this grandson is he, as hard line,

is he considered to be like that?

I mean, Raul's still alive.

He's older, but he's still involved, right?

He's still involved.

He's part of the mastermind behind all this.

And the grandson, what's interesting

is that he's always been kind of backstage

behind the scenes, not very visible.

We do know he has very close ties to the grandfather.

He's close to him, very close to him, right?

Eyes and ears for him.

However, what we know about him is that he likes to have

a good life party.

He has been spotted in South Florida,

celebrating on yachts and living the good life

what Cubans cannot do, right?

In the island.

So I'm not exactly sure how hard line he would be.

Is there some sort of an underground movement

that could rise up and take over for the people?

There's been a question that I've asked myself

and we've heard about it a lot, which is,

is the Trump administration trying

to implement the same playbook in Venezuela in Cuba.

And it wouldn't necessarily work

because you don't have an opposition figure

in Cuba the way that Venezuela has one.

And I'm referring to Maria Curina Machado.

You don't have that figure,

to kind of lead the way, lead a transition in Cuba.

That's not the case.

She won the Nobel Peace Prize, of course.

You know, famously giving the actual prize metal

to the president, you know what?

There's nothing like that at all in Cuba.

They don't have that.

They don't have that figure.

But at the same time, you have the protests, right?

These protests that we've been witnessing

in the overnight hours, they're hitting a breaking point.

And what I also find interesting, yes,

it's not the first time that we witness

people taking to the streets and protesting.

In the past, they would be asking for food

and medicine and water.

Would I find different this time around?

Is that they are shouting, liberty, freedom,

down with communism.

This is what they're chanting.

Protesters have even been seen burning symbols

of the regime.

So their tone, I find it to be a bit more desperate,

more political, no longer about survival,

it's about regime change.

And they find this to be their window of opportunity.

If they don't make this happen now,

if they don't accomplish this now,

then they feel like it'll never happen.

The fuel shortages, the blackouts,

the lack of a lot of things getting worse

would seem to embolden them even more, correct?

Absolutely.

And there is talk about Russia and a tanker

that might make its way to Cuba, it's being tracked.

Certainly, it would go against what President Trump

has done with an embargo.

Is that still possible?

It would give them weeks worth of fuel potentially.

Right. And this kind of makes you think

of the Cuban missile crisis, right?

What would happen if they actually make it there?

Because we also have our navy ready to go.

There was another Russian fuel tanker

that was headed in that direction,

but then they detoured.

So we have to just wait and see what happens

during the next few days, if they actually get close,

if not, if they detour along the way.

But like I said, Cuba is in a terrible situation.

Miguel Diaz Canal made this announcement,

saying, well, we want to open up to investment.

We want to allow Cubans abroad to invest.

And that sounds like reform, but it's all about cash.

And you cannot have any sort of economic reform

unless you have the political system

that's in place change,

unless you have this regime out.

It's all about money.

Tourism is down, oil is gone.

Havana clearly needs money.

And we have to get a reality check.

You're not gonna be offering this to Cubans to invest, right?

Those at live abroad.

When you don't have a system in place,

there are no property rights.

There's a risk of confiscation.

There's like I said, there's no political change

so we cannot be fooled by these type of announcements

that we hear.

This is not capitalism.

All of a sudden arriving in Cuba,

they're just trying to figure out a way

to inject money into the island

since they are starving.

A month ago, there was deadly drama

just off the coast of Cuba,

involving a boat from Florida.

The Cuban government claims there were 10 people on board.

Cubans living in the US with weapons

and a lot of ammunition.

And they open fire on Cuban soldiers

who shot back, killing four.

The other six are now in custody in Cuba,

facing terror and other charges,

accused of plotting to infiltrate the country.

The US government has its own investigation

with many, including Congressman Jimenez,

saying you can't take Cuba's word for what happened.

We do know that the boat, the small boat,

was registered in the state of Florida.

However, what exactly the intention of that group

and what exactly unfolded

who opened fire first, that has not been confirmed.

And recently I spoke to a woman that has been named

and has been accused by the Cuban regime

as the mastermind behind this operation, so to speak.

They have accused her as well of terrorism.

And she said, look, I was not involved.

What happens is that I've been a very outspoken critic

of the Cuban regime.

They know about me.

They know about me ever since I lived in Cuba.

And this is the way that they operate.

So she even know who these 10 people are.

Do you know, do we know who these 10 people are?

We only have their names.

We have their names.

You can look them up by their names and stuff.

But something else that was very strange.

One of the names that was included in the list apparently

was in Cuba according to the Cuban government, right?

The day after this incident, this individual,

this young man was in South Florida giving interviews.

So how can he be in Cuba

if he's in South Florida the following day, right?

So that's why it's very, you can't trust everything.

That they're putting out there.

Venezuela, we referenced it.

They haven't had any oil shipments since the U.S.

went into Venezuela and captured later Nicholas Maduro.

This week, Thursday,

he's going to be in court in New York cities

facing numerous charges, narco terrorism

and drug-related charges.

Fox Nation has a special out on this.

The House of Maduro, Palace to Prison,

you are featured in this special.

What should we know about the situation

with Maduro, the ousted leader?

Nicholas Maduro claims that he has no money whatsoever

for his defense.

And here's a situation.

Nicholas Maduro is not Venezuela's legitimate president.

The United States has said this since 2019,

we do not recognize him as a legitimate president.

However, Nicholas Maduro claims he's a legitimate president.

And because of this, he claims he can use government money

from Venezuela to defend himself.

And that's one of the questions that will be raised

during this hearing.

But it's very interesting to see, right?

How his life went from the palace in Mita Flores

in Garacas to a prison.

We have some details as to what life is like

in prison for Maduro.

He is being held in a small cell.

There's a metal bed, a very small window,

very limited light.

He's isolated.

He leaves approximately three times a week.

And there are reports that he has been heard

yelling at night, screaming at night.

I'm the president of Venezuela.

I'm the president of Venezuela.

So sharp contrast, right?

From what we saw months ago.

He was dancing.

He kept saying to the United States, come get me.

And now look at his life.

He's not dancing anymore.

He's apparently screaming within his cell.

Now that Maduro's out and there is new leadership

in Venezuela, what is it like there?

What's the regime like with the power structure

and about the people and the living conditions there now?

So there has been some progress in the sense

that the US Embassy in Garacas reopened.

But let's remember, there are still

about 500 political prisoners that are still jailed.

We've also seen some leadership changes.

Delsey Rodriguez dismantling the military hierarchy.

But this is something very important to watch.

And I say it because yes, she removed the minister

of defense Vladimir Padrino and appointed Gustavo González Lopez.

But who is Gustavo González Lopez?

He was sanctioned by the US and the European Union

for human rights violation.

And a human rights watchdog is simply calling this recycling

of impunity.

And on the streets, people say, yes, we are seeing some changes.

But when it comes to the economy, inflation

is still extremely high.

What do they need?

And what do they continue asking for free and fair elections?

Sooner than later, they don't want to prolong this

because they say it's risky.

Meanwhile, we continue to watch Maria Carrino Machado,

who said her intention is to return to Venezuela.

However, President Donald Trump advised her.

He recommended that she not return yet

to her home country to Venezuela

due to security concerns for her safety.

So we will continue to watch that to see if she decides

to return or not.

It is really something else.

That vaccination special, the House of Maduro,

Palace to Prison.

Andrea Llanaris is a Fox noticias anchor

that show 4 p.m. Eastern time on Fox to Portez,

also on the Fox noticias YouTube channel.

And you can also catch the episodes on the Fox 1 app.

Andrea, great to have you back on.

Thanks for joining us.

Thank you so much.

This is your way, Abraham, with your Fox news commentary.

Coming up.

This year, the CDC noted that for the year ending October 2025,

there was a 17% drop in drug overdose deaths nationwide.

Throughout all of the 2024 year,

deaths involving synthetic opioids fell more than 35%.

The flow of deadly fentanyl across our border

is down by a record 56% in one year.

The president addressed the issue at a state of the Union

one month ago.

Still, thousands of people are dying

from fentanyl and drug overdose deaths.

In the one year period, ending in March of 2025,

66% of overdose deaths involved opioids.

Most of those involved synthetic opioids.

That's why I designated these cartels

as foreign terrorist organizations.

And I declared elicit fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction.

Local law enforcement all over the country

is still dealing with it on a regular basis,

though many counties and cities have allocated more money

to the problem.

In San Diego County, where Kelly Martinez is the sheriff,

she noted her deputies carry around Narcan

and they have a specialized team of deputies

dedicated to combating fentanyl trafficking.

While recent years have shown progress,

with a 30% decrease in fentanyl related deaths in 2024,

the loss of 494 lives remains a sobering reminder

that our work is far from over.

So for all the work being done,

the flow of fentanyl has not stopped

and is still finding its way into American communities.

Listen, the fentanyl epidemic is still very much

a crisis in the United States.

Alan Wilson is the attorney general of South Carolina.

Well, you might see ebbs and flows and downward trends in it

because of a lot of the efforts we've engaged

in over the last year, two year and a half,

such as closing down the border and our world drugs.

You're still seeing fentanyl as a major issue back in 2024.

My office was involved in a local state

and federal investigation of fentanyl trafficking

in the upstate of South Carolina.

In fact, in one operation, we seized enough fentanyl

to kill half a million people.

I know the DEA sees enough fentanyl to kill

over 100 million people in July of last year.

So fentanyl is very much something that is a problem

in the US, but the problem isn't just fentanyl.

The problem is, is the social media platforms

like the Chinese owned application WeChat or WeChat,

which is its Chinese counterpart,

are being used by Chinese as well as Mexican drug cartels

to launder millions, hundreds of millions of dollars

in drug trafficking funds that are being piped

into the United States of America.

And this is being used to kill our citizens.

I'm gonna get to that in a second

about where these investigations are leading you.

But bring me back to South Carolina for a second here.

When you all investigate these deaths,

what are you finding about how purchases are often being made?

Are dealers cutting drugs with fentanyl?

How is fentanyl getting into communities?

When I talk to my team of investigators,

they say general, everything that we touch

is got fentanyl in it.

It seems like it's not just any listed drugs

like cocaine and heroin and meth.

It's not just being used to adulterate

or expand those supplies, but it's also being used

in things like oxycontin and other opiates.

It's also being used in pills that kids use to study.

Kids taking drugs, that's not drugs,

but taking pills to help them stay up and study.

That's a catarong.

Right, that's a notable one.

They're taking these drugs,

and a lot of times they're getting these pills

from their friends are from not the most reputable places.

If it's not coming from a pharmacy,

there's a significant chance that it has been adulterated

or cut with fentanyl.

And what these drug dealers will do is

is they'll take one pill and they'll mix it with fentanyl

and make five or 10 or 15 pills.

The problem is is that you can't control

the dosage amounts of the fentanyl in each pill

and a couple of grains of fentanyl

is enough to kill a human being.

And so what my team is telling me,

they see fentanyl in everything,

not just opiates and pills like Adderall,

but they're singing the illicit drugs as well.

So it is very concerning for us

and obviously law enforcement is combating this,

not just in our state, but around the country,

but it is everywhere and it is everything.

And again, while we might be curbing the amount

of fentanyl coming into the US,

the supply that is here is still very much pervasive

in all of our communities.

Now let's go back to the concern

over these Chinese chat apps.

You wrote in a letter to the president

with your counterpart in North Carolina

that the transnational trade fueling the epidemic

relies heavily on sophisticated money laundering networks

and increasingly strong evidence indicates

that we chat and its China-based sister appuation

serve as the central financial conduits

for these operations.

Tell us more about what you guys are finding

in your investigations.

Well, last year, the North Carolina Attorney General,

Jeff Jackson and I actually had a press conference

and we let a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general

in engaging WeChat, which is the American-based

application of WeChat, which is the Chinese version

of it in China.

And obviously what we had learned

through our investigations is that a lot of these drug

traffickers, whether they're Mexican cartels or others,

are using WeChat and Chinese businessmen

or using it as well.

They're using as a peer-to-peer app

and a money transferring app to transfer illicit funds

and launder funds, hundreds of millions of dollars

and funds that are being used to traffic and fentanyl.

So they're using the back channel of these applications

that we were not able to get to.

Now we did engage WeChat, which is a US-based company

that falls under US jurisdiction and US laws.

But the sister application, which is based

under Chinese laws and is using Chinese telephone numbers

as opposed to US numbers, does not fall under US jurisdiction.

It does not have oversight by the US government.

It doesn't have the, we don't have the ability

to follow the funds.

And WeChat is the sister application

and that is what they are using and we can't touch them,

which is why we're asking President Trump

and his administration to aid us in that at their level

because at the local level, we've exhausted all of our

means of being able to combat this type of illicit conduct.

If the president did something, what would it be?

Would it be to just get the data

so that you could track the people who are the traffickers?

What's your goal here?

Well, we want the president to understand

is that when they're engaging with the people's Republic

of China, which is a pacing threat to the United States

for the president and his administration as well

as the Department of State under Secretary Rubio

to understand that the Chinese are engaging the US,

maybe not in a form of conventional warfare,

but they are using other forms of warfare

that fall below the spectrum of actual conflict.

They are using technologies like WeChat

to basically support drug trafficking operations

that are leading to the deaths of millions

of American citizens.

And we want them to understand that if China

is going to engage the United States with this,

that the US should use every single diplomatic tool

in its arsenal as well as economic or financial tools

to hold China accountable for what they're facilitating

here in the United States.

Again, this is no different than a China

where basically, you know, sneaking in Chinese assassins

to kill US citizens.

They are sneaking in drugs using these social media platforms

and they're knowingly doing it

and they're not allowing us to be able to curtail it

at the law enforcement level.

So we're asking the president to use all the powers

at the national level as well as his diplomatic

and economic means to basically push back

against the Chinese government.

Now it's interesting because you know the president has said

when he's implemented tariffs that part of his tariff war

has been about addressing fentanyl.

He's expressed dismay and anger

at the Chinese precursor chemicals going

to the Mexican drug cartels in order to fuel this problem.

Do you see any evidence of the Chinese government

trying to stop those fentanyl precursors

from getting to Mexico?

I don't think the Chinese government will ever try to stop

when it comes to harassing or weakening our US,

the United States of America,

whether it's through engaging in illicit pipelining

of fentanyl or harassing us in other ways,

invading our privacy rights,

selling misinformation, disinformation,

whatever they can do to weaken or attack the United States.

They're gonna use every recourse at their level.

The president Trump has been very strong with this

and it's the first administration.

He took a very hard line against fentanyl trafficking.

He took a very hard line against companies like WeChat.

Last summer, he signed the Halt Fentanyl Act,

which is an incredible law that helps us better go

after fentanyl traffickers.

And we know that the president is engaged on this issue.

We just wanted the president know that local law enforcement

and attorneys general from the various states.

And by the way, this is a bipartisan issue.

Democrats and Republicans recognize

that these Chinese social media platforms

that can also be peer-to-peer platforms for transferring funds

are being used to hurt and attack the American people.

And we wanted the president to be aware of it.

We wanted his administration to be aware of it

so that they can help us in our law enforcement efforts

at the diplomatic level.

And obviously, as you just said,

the president has tools at his disposal

that we don't have, like the ability to use tariffs

to defend the American people.

How concerned are you over American social media?

We've heard stories, obviously, over the years of kids

buying, you know, what they think is a percussed

or an Adderall or whatever on Instagram, on Facebook,

on wherever.

I imagine that's on your radar as well.

And nothing has really gotten through Congress

on that front, has it?

And then, not to my knowledge, obviously,

there's something I'm very concerned about.

As I just said, when I talk to our investigators

and our prosecutors, when they talk about fentanyl,

they say, general, it is in everything.

And if you are not getting your prescription

from across the counter, then you are taking your life

in your own hands.

If you're taking that pill from a friend at school

or from a bottle that you didn't get from a pharmacist,

there is a possibility that that has been adulterated or cut

with some type of fentanyl.

Obviously, if you're engaging in illicit drugs,

we know that illicit drugs like cocaine and heroin

and meth and crack, and others are being cut with fentanyl as well.

So fentanyl is kind of in everything,

and it's a money multiplier for drug dealers.

But it's also a way for governments like China

to hurt weekend and harass the United States

by a killing its citizens and be stretching the band width

of our first responders and our local

and federal law enforcement officials.

They're distracting us, and they're using that

as a way to weaken us.

Attorney General of South Carolina, Alan Wilson,

thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you so much.

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It is time to take the quiz.

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Read and review the Fox News rundown on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen.

It's time for your Fox News commentary.

Joe Abraham.

What's on your mind?

On January 19th, 2025, my family was shattered. My daughter was taken from us and an active

violence that in my view should never have happened. In the days and months that followed,

I made the decision that no grieving parents should ever have to make to speak out publicly

over and over again about what I believe were systematic failures that cost my daughter

her life. I've spoken to lawmakers. I sat for interviews on national television. I wrote

and spoke wherever I was given the opportunity, not because I wanted attention, but because

I believe deeply that what happened to my daughter was not an isolated tragedy. It was a warning.

I said then that if nothing changed, it would happen again. And now just over a year

later, another family is living that nightmare at the hands of Illinois sanctuary policies.

In 18 year old college students, someone just beginning life has been killed. And once

again, the circumstances raise the same painful questions about policy, enforcement and accountability.

Once again, we are confronted with the possibility that this tragedy like the one that took my

daughter might have been prevented. There is no vindication in this. Only heartbreak

again. When I first began speaking out, some people listened. Others told me that what happened

to my daughter was rare. That it should not shape broader policy. That this system, while

imperfect, was working as intended. But how many times does something have to happen before

we stop calling it rare? What we see now is not just the coincidence. It is the result of policies

that, however, well-intentioned, create real gaps. Gaps were individuals who should be identified

detained or removed are not. Gaps that allow preventable tragedies to occur. This is not about

assigning blame to entire communities. It is not about fear or division. It is about

responsibility. It is about whether we are willing to acknowledge that public policy has real

world consequences and that when these policies fail, people pay with their lives. I spent the

past year trying to turn unimaginable grief into something that might protect others. I have met

with policymakers. I have shared my daughter's story more times than I can count. I have pushed

for change that I believe could prevent another family from going through what mine has endured.

Yet here we are. Another young life lost, another family forever changed, another moment in which

we are forced to ask questions that should already have answers. How many warnings does it take?

How many families have to suffer before we are willing to confront the reality that something is

broken? I don't pretend to have every solution, but I know this. Ignoring the problem will not make

it go away. Dismissing these tragedies as isolated incidents will not prevent the next one.

If anything, it guarantees it. The family now living through this. My heart is with you.

I know the shock, the anger, the unbearable grief. I know the questions that will keep you up at night.

And I am so deeply sorry that the warnings came too late to spare you. I am Joe Abraham. This

piece originally ran on Fox Digital.