Donald Trump’s Cuba Problem Comes With Big Risks
Today, Trump’s campaign manager made a television appearance in which she appears to have made the story quite a bit worse for her boss. The Washington Post noted:
Donald Trump’s campaign manager denied Thursday that one of the GOP nominee’s businesses violated the U.S.-Cuban embargo in 1998, dismissing an investigative report that accused Trump of knowingly spending $68,000 staking out an investment on the island.“Read the entire story. It starts out with a screaming headline, as it usually does, that he did business in Cuba. And it turns out that he decided not to invest there. I think they paid money, as I understand from the story, in 1998 – and we’re not supposed to talk about years ago when it comes to the Clintons,” Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, said on ABC’s “The View” Thursday, amid cross talk.
Conway emphasized repeatedly that Trump ultimately chose not to follow through on the Cuban venture. By all appearances, that’s correct. But the question is whether Trump spent $68,000 in Cuba in 1998, as the report claims, in violation of the U.S. embargo.And on that front, Conway said this morning, “I think they paid money, as I understand from the story, in 1998.” Trump’s campaign manager may not have intended to be quite so candid: she effectively endorsed the point of the Newsweek article she hoped to dismiss.