S8 Ep757: 15. Mary Anastasia O'Grady debunks myths about Cuba's electricity crisis, attributing it to a lack of hard currency rather than the US embargo. The regime prioritizes power for elites and luxury hotels over ordinary citizens.
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 17 April 2026
⏱️ 11 minutes
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Summary
15. Mary Anastasia O'Grady debunks myths about Cuba's electricity crisis, attributing it to a lack of hard currency rather than the US embargo. The regime prioritizes power for elites and luxury hotels over ordinary citizens.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm John Batchler. I welcome Mary Anastacio Grady, the America's columnist and editor for the Wall Street Journal editorial page, looking at the Americans. Right now, especially Cuba, much in the news. |
| 0:28.8 | This is a statement by Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts. |
| 0:33.0 | Quote, by blocking power to Cuba's hospitals, the United States is guilty of committing a serious human rights abuse, end quote. Nothing in that statement I learned from Mary is true, including the of and the a. Mary, a very good evening to you. The electricity crisis in Cuba, as I understand it, the same old excuse, it's the embargo, it's the United |
| 0:55.9 | States. You, however, guide me to hard currency. How so, Mary. Good evening to you. Well, good |
| 1:01.9 | evening, John. As most of your listeners probably know, Cuba is in a terrible humanitarian crisis |
| 1:07.6 | right now. They're experiencing island-wide blackouts, and when they're not island-wide blackouts, |
| 1:15.0 | they're blackouts in different parts of the island continually, and they're brownouts. |
| 1:22.9 | And this is really tough on the people because that means you lose electricity, you lose |
| 1:28.4 | refrigeration capacity, you lose the ability to pump water. |
| 1:34.3 | So drinking water becomes very scarce. |
| 1:37.1 | It's a very tough situation. |
| 1:39.3 | And the main problem driving all of this is the fact that Cuba doesn't have hard currency anymore. |
| 1:46.0 | Let's remember that when they first did the Cuban Revolution in 1959, they were wards of the Soviet Union. |
| 1:53.0 | And for 30 years, they were wards of the Soviet Union until the Soviet Union broke apart. |
| 1:59.0 | Then they went through a difficult period where they didn't have hard currency again. |
| 2:02.6 | And then along came Hugo Chavez and Venezuela, started to send, you know, oil shipments to the island, |
| 2:08.6 | where they used the oil, but they also resold the oil on secondary market to accumulate hard currency. |
| 2:16.6 | And now Venezuela is not an option anymore for them either. |
| 2:21.1 | So they're just flat out broke. |
| 2:24.5 | And because they're broke, they can't fix their broken down electricity grid. |
| 2:30.4 | And that's why they're having these power outages. |
| 2:33.5 | Congressman McGovern is completely wrong, |
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