Televangelist Pat Robertson kicked off “The 700 Club” today with a joke about President Obama’s move to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba, saying, “If our president had been an Indian, he would have sold Manhattan for twenty-four bucks.”
Later in the show, however, Robertson said he actually supports “opening up to Cuba” … in principle. But since President Obama did it, now Robertson is against it and thinks it shows Obama’s “weakness.”
“Now listen, I am for opening up to Cuba, we have been sending aid in there, we’ve had missionaries and stuff going on in Cuba,” he said. “You know, it’s cool, we want to say the Cubans are friends, we want that and we want Cuba to be free.” But he argued that America’s 52-year-old sanctions against Cuba were just about to work in toppling the Cuban government until Obama’s announcement offered Cuban leaders a “bailout.”
He then got a little confused about the state of Latin American politics, calling the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez — whom Robertson once wanted assassinated — the current leader of El Salvador: “They were dependent on money from Nicaragua, excuse me, from the regime of Chavez in El Salvador…But Chavez is out of money and that country is gone and busted.”
Robertson also attacked “King Obama” for hiring aides who “don’t love America” and failing to help political prisoners in Cuba, even though Cuba agreed to release fifty-three political prisoners, along with a U.S. citizen and an American intelligence agent.
