The DOJ indicts former Cuban leader Raul Castro as questions emerge over whether the Trump administration is preparing for a broader confrontation with Cuba. A House Judiciary hearing puts the Southern Poverty Law Center under the microscope as Republicans accuse the indicted group of manufacturing hate for profit. Billionaire Jeff Bezos weighs in on President Trump and the First Lady, New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani, and more. And James Murdoch, the liberal son of the Fox Titan, makes a major media play of his own.
00:01:36.840All that and more coming up in just a moment on your AM Update.
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00:02:40.820dollars. The DOJ announcing the indictment of 94-year-old former Cuban President Raul Castro
00:02:49.360nearly 30 years after the Cuban military shot down two civilian planes operated by humanitarian
00:02:55.880group Brothers to the Rescue. Five Cuban fighter pilots involved in the shooting also indicted.
00:03:02.720Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche unveiling the charges yesterday in Miami, where Cuban Americans
00:03:08.320make up about 30 percent of the population. Today, we are announcing an indictment
00:03:15.560charging Raul Castro and several others with conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals.
00:03:26.020Mr. Castro and the others are charged with additional crimes as well, including destruction
00:03:31.220of aircraft and four individual counts of murder. The indictment was returned by a grand jury
00:03:39.220sitting in this district in Miami on April 23rd, 2026, and was unsealed today. For nearly 30 years,
00:03:49.56030 years, the families of four murdered Americans have waited for justice.
00:03:55.560The DOJ saying the planes were civilian aircraft flying over international waters as part of a humanitarian mission focused on Cuban refugees fleeing the island by sea.
00:04:06.660Well, Cuba claims the planes were violating its airspace.
00:04:10.080The announcement timed with Cuban Independence Day.
00:04:14.980Secretary of State Marco Rubio releasing a Spanish-language video directly targeting Cubans saying,
00:04:21.120quote, the real reason you don't have electricity, fuel, or food is because those who control your
00:04:26.880country have plundered billions of dollars, but nothing has been used to help the people.
00:04:33.100These latest actions coming amid a series of recent moves raising questions about whether
00:04:37.660the Trump administration is laying the groundwork for a more aggressive military confrontation with
00:04:43.460Cuba. In March, President Trump openly floating the idea of, quote, taking Cuba in some form,
00:04:48.920calling the island a failed nation and saying he believed he could, quote,
00:04:52.980do anything he wanted with it. Earlier this year, the U.S. military captured former Venezuelan leader
00:04:58.260Nicolas Maduro, a longtime Cuban ally who had already been indicted by the DOJ. Venezuela now
00:05:05.220run by Maduro's former deputy, Delce Rodriguez, who has been allowed to remain in power as long
00:05:11.740as she cooperates with the administration. Maduro's removal has had direct consequences
00:05:17.160for Havana. For years, Venezuela was one of Cuba's most important oil lifelines. Since Maduro's
00:05:24.640ouster, the administration blocking oil shipments to Cuba, worsening an already severe fuel crisis,
00:05:31.140prolonging blackouts, and stirring up the civilian population. And earlier this week, Axios reporting
00:05:37.180based on alleged classified intelligence that Cuba, in its weakened state, has obtained more
00:05:43.360than 300 military drones from U.S. adversaries and discussed possible attacks on American targets,
00:05:50.260including Guantanamo Bay, U.S. military vessels, and possibly Key West, Florida.
00:05:56.440Cuban's foreign minister calling the allegation a fraudulent case designed to justify possible
00:06:02.620military action. We spoke to South Florida-based freelance journalist Juan Rojas, who sees the
00:06:08.420Trump administration's push against Cuba as part of a broader electoral strategy.
00:06:12.740It looks like they're moving forward with some sort of Maduro-esque playbook.
00:06:19.800Hard to say if they'll actually go through with trying to arrest him or maybe some sort of negotiation with the regime to hand him over.
00:06:28.220Other than that, maybe nothing comes of it at all.
00:06:31.820It's just purely symbolic, but that symbolism is clearly just meant for South Florida and Cuban Americans more broadly.
00:06:39.400With recent polling showing President Trump hemorrhaging Hispanic support, Rojas says the push to topple Cuba's communist regime could help the administration shore up a key part of its Latino coalition.
00:06:51.260The administration has really alienated a lot of Latinos, including Cuban Americans, who still generally support President Trump.
00:07:00.620But a lot of them, and you do feel this a lot in South Florida, have been upset by what they view as excesses with like the deportation policy,
00:07:10.780like deporting people to third countries that they're not originally from, excessive force used to like arrest people.
00:07:20.640But on the other hand, they really love the Cuba policy and the prospect of regime change on the island.
00:07:28.720As a result, I see I at least see a lot of Cuban Americans, especially giving the administration a pass and possibly like even this could motivate turnout during the midterms, which was really crucial among Latino voters where support has dropped off a lot.
00:07:46.880Rojas says D.C. is making a dangerous bet that making conditions even worse will force Cubans into revolt.
00:07:54.480If they don't get oil, they just can't turn the lights on.
00:07:57.240And so as a result, that's a lot of Cuban Americans here have called on boycotting third countries.
00:08:06.080Yeah, Mexico and Russia from Venezuela shipping oil to the island under the theory that, you know,
00:08:13.220if we make conditions so bad on the island, people will rise up and overthrow the regime.
00:08:20.580But you want to make people suffer to stimulate them in order to overthrow a regime.
00:08:26.720But there's a lot of it's kind of a double sided sword.
00:08:30.260I mean, besides like the humanitarian aspect to it, you usually like create a rally around the flag effect around whatever government is in power.
00:08:41.500And you also give them an excuse to crack down and also just scapegoat, which is what the Cuban regime has done for decades.
00:08:49.000Rojas warns Cuba is not Venezuela, and that any hopes of copying the Maduro playbook may be underestimating the island.
00:08:56.420It's really hard to say because it's such a closed-off system.
00:09:00.520I mean, you know, like in Venezuela, for instance, there is like a formal opposition.
00:09:05.480There's like civil society and like whatever.
00:09:07.960Cuba, it's a one-party state. And the Communist Party literally controls everything. So what
00:09:16.880comes after? I'm not really sure. I mean, you know, some people say that, oh, if we invade,
00:09:23.400you know, the Cuban people will rise up and defend the revolution. I have my doubts. But yeah,
00:09:29.700sure, I'm sure there's some diehards that would be willing to, you know, fight an invasion to the
00:09:36.920death, but then there are people, there could be people that go into the mountains and mount
00:09:41.220an insurgency. The House Judiciary Committee holding a hearing yesterday on the Southern
00:09:47.700Poverty Law Center, or SPLC, amid mounting scrutiny of the once prominent civil rights
00:09:53.200organization now under federal indictment. The hearing examining what House Republicans describe
00:09:59.220as the SPLC's role in artificially elevating the threat of domestic extremism. Founded in
00:10:06.580Montgomery, Alabama in 1971, the SPLC began as a non-profit civil rights law firm known for
00:10:13.200bringing cases against the KKK and other white supremacist organizations. But in more recent
00:10:18.380years, the group branding conservative and libertarian groups like Moms for Liberty as
00:10:24.020anti-government and placing Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA on its hate map alongside the KKK
00:10:30.720and other extremist groups. The hearing coming after a federal grand jury in Alabama indicted
00:10:38.020the SPLC last month on 11 criminal counts, including wire fraud, false statements to a
00:10:44.400federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering. According to the
00:10:50.360DOJ, the SPLC allegedly used more than $3 million in donated funds between 2014 and 2023 to pay
00:10:59.100individuals associated with violent extremist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan
00:11:04.680Nations, and neo-Nazi organizations, to allegedly act as informants. Prosecutors
00:11:11.120alleging the group concealed those payments through fake entities and misled donors about
00:11:16.680how their money was being used. One of the central examples raised in the hearing was
00:11:21.540Charlottesville, where prosecutors say an SPLC-paid field source was involved in helping
00:11:27.020plan and promote the 2017 Unite the Right rally that led to one death and ignited years of national
00:11:35.100debate over extremism and political violence. In yesterday's House Judiciary hearing, Chairman Jim
00:11:41.220Jordan arguing Charlottesville was not an isolated example, but part of a broader SPLC model,
00:11:47.200paying sources inside extremist movements, amplifying the threat those movements posed,
00:11:51.940and then converting the fear into donations.
00:11:55.800FieldSource 37, again, he was the first one I mentioned.