There’s a new sheriff in town.
After Barack Obama issued a wishy washy statement on Castro’s passing that would make ardent anti-Communists like John F Kennedy and Ronald Reagan roll in their graves, Donald Trump issued a statement of his own:
Donald Trump condemned the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro on an otherwise quiet Saturday for the president-elect.
“The world marks the passing of a brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades,” Trump said in a statement issued hours after Castro’s death. “Fidel Castro’s legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights.”
Trump, who has pledged to roll back the Obama administration’s diplomatic opening to Cuba, said the nation remains “a totalitarian island,” but he hopes that Castro’s passing will mark “a move away from the horrors endured for too long, and toward a future in which the wonderful Cuban people finally live in the freedom they so richly deserve.”
Mike Pence, seemingly not eager to be outdone, chimed in as well:
The tyrant #Castro is dead. New hope dawns. We will stand with the oppressed Cuban people for a free and democratic Cuba. Viva Cuba Libre!
— Mike Pence (@mike_pence) November 26, 2016
It’s truly a great day for freedom loving people everywhere!