“He’s gone. He’s going to take a plane to Havana in the next 24 hours,” Mike Waltz told Fox News.
Kylie Cooper/Pool via Reuters
Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered the expulsion of a Cuban diplomat accused of lunging at a member of U.N. Ambassador Mike Waltz’s team in the General Assembly Hall.
Tensions exploded Tuesday when Waltz gave a speech in New York, accusing the Cuban government of benefiting from the forced labor of its citizens. During the speech, Waltz showed photos of the country’s late dictator, Fidel Castro, and current president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, wearing luxury Rolex watches.
The Cuban delegation, including Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, strongly objected to the speech, with Parrilla angrily approaching the podium at which Waltz was speaking. The US ambassador accused Cuban officials of trying to “intimidate” him. “I am the representative of the United States of America,” Waltz said. “Backup!”
Waltz yells at Parrilla, who objects to his speech and calls for a point of order.
During the fallout, Richard Tur de la Concepcion, first secretary of the Cuban delegation to the UN, was recorded trying to snatch the phone from Waltz’s spokesman, JP Freire, to prevent him from filming the argument.
During an interview on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show Tuesday night, Waltz said Tur de la Concepcion “shoved and tried to assault” one of his team members, adding that Rubio signed the paperwork to deport him from the United States.
Mike Waltz showed off some of the props he used during his speech about Cuban “elites” on Fox News.
“He’s gone. He’s going to take a plane to Havana in the next 24 hours,” Waltz said.
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“You lay your hands on an American here in the United States. President Trump, Secretary Rubio and I, we are not going to stand for it, there will be consequences.”
A State Department spokesperson later confirmed to The Daily Beast: “We have made it clear to the Cuban mission that this individual is not welcome in the United States and, therefore, this individual has left.
“Members of the incompetent Cuban communist regime have shown their true essence through their tactics of intimidation and oppression. These tactics will not work nor will they be tolerated.”
Waltz shared videos of the confrontation at the United Nations General Assembly on social media, accusing Cuban “regime thugs” of rushing on stage to interrupt his speech.
“This individual needs to get away from this podium,” Waltz said of Parrilla. “He’s not going to intimidate me in the United States of America like he tries to intimidate political prisoners.” Parrilla responds that Waltz is a “liar.”
Another clip showing Tur de la Concepcion trying to grab Freire’s phone was also released. In the footage, the Cuban diplomat accuses Waltz’s team of “violating my personal space.”
After the confrontation, Cuban diplomat David Ramirez Alvarez sharply accused Waltz of being a “disgrace to what it means to be a diplomat.”
“The man talks, walks and acts like a character from the film Idiocracy. Cuba will not stand idly by while this person eviscerates the principles of the United Nations,” Álvarez posted on X.
Waltz defended his actions during his appearance on Hannity.
“I’ve been a Green Beret for 27 years. I’m not going to have it. They thought they could intimidate us in the United States of America like they do their own people, and they had something else coming,” he said.
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