On Friday, PolitiFact writers Samantha Putterman and Maria Briceno gave Secretary of State Marco Rubio a “half true” rating for his claim that the United States is not the reason that Cuba is experiencing 22-hour blackouts.
According to Putterman and Briceno, it is true that economic mismanagement—the words “communist” or “socialist” appear nowhere in the article—has led to the decay of Cuba’s energy system and the original blackouts. However, in the “If your time is short section,” they write, “The U.S. government’s oil blockade has worsened the situation. The U.S. cut off Venezuela’s oil shipments to Cuba and threatened tariffs and sanctions on other countries seeking to send fuel or do business with the island.”
One hand-picked expert the authors selected was William LeoGrande, who said, “The length of the blackouts has gotten worse since the oil embargo was in place, so that is clearly, unquestionably, a major part of the problem," and “To claim blackouts are solely the (Cuban) government's fault is simply disingenuous."
Of course, Putterman and Briceno declined to mention that LeoGrande is a former Democratic staffer who is ideologically opposed to a hardline approach to Cuba.
PolitiFact’s other experts echoed Leo Grande. For instance, Bert Hoffman, “a Latin America expert at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies,” declared, “While there have been frequent blackouts in the past, they now are on a very different scale.”
The U.S. began seizing Venezuelan oil in December 2025, but in August 2025 CNN—not exactly a Trump administration-friendly outlet—was running headlines about Cuba’s 20-hour blackouts. Yes, Rubio said 22 hours, but that is the high end of the usual 20–22- hour range.
PolitiFact also cited Rubio as saying, “They haven't spent a penny in fixing their energy production, their electrical grid. They don't spend any money on that stuff. They pocket it.”
That is true and should have led to PolitiFact putting Rubio’s claim fully on the true side of the truth-o-meter. The recently indicted Raul Castro somehow managed to amass a net worth of $150 million in the communist country, while Fidel was once estimated to be worth $900 million. Therefore, PolitiFact has confused correlation for causation because it is only logical to assume that even if the U.S. didn’t start seizing Venezuelan oil, Cuba’s energy system would only further decay over the last six months.
