On Tuesday, CBS This Morning devoted a nearly five minute segment to touting Carnival offering cruises to Cuba starting in 2016. Co-host Norah O’Donnell proclaimed: “The historic reopening of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba creates new business opportunities for both countries. Carnival Corporation, the world’s largest cruise company, is announcing it received permission from the U.S. government to begin travel to Cuba.”
In the segment that followed, O’Donnell asked Carnival CEO Arnold Donald: “Congress still has some work to do in terms of lifting some of the restrictions with Cuba. Would that impact your sailing at all?” Donald claimed: “Ours already exists under current guidelines. There’s 12 different ways people can legitimately travel from the United States to Cuba. We fit within that, so we’re fine.”
Earlier in the interview, Donald explained how his company had gotten around the continued U.S. embargo on tourism to the Communist country:
We evolved from a concept which became the Fathom brand, it’s our tenth brand.....And the concept for Fathom is social impact travel and cultural immersion, both for the traveler and for the destination. And so out of that we recognized an opportunity under the existing guidelines, the guidelines that already exist to travel to Cuba, that we could, in fact, apply for a license and we did and we were granted it by the Treasury Department and by the Commerce Department.
However, back in May, during an interview with CBS’s travel editor Peter Greenberg, Republican Senator Jeff Flake – a supporter of opening diplomatic relations with Cuba – shot down the possibility of cruising to Cuba under the embargo guidelines:
GREENBERG: Until more hotels can be developed, the country remains ripe for the cruise lines, which are already floating hotels. And they’ve quietly charted 11 viable harbors.
[To Senator Flake] The cruise lines will go in first, more than likely.
FLAKE: Well, they-
GREENBERG: They have the infrastructure.
FLAKE: They have some of that now, but right now until the law is changed-
GREENBERG: They can’t go.
FLAKE: They can’t go. They can’t go because if you’re on a cruise ship, I think it’s safe to say that your primary purpose is tourism.
GREENBERG: That’s right. Despite last month’s handshake between President Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro, and a deal brokered then blessed by none other than the Pope, being a traditional tourist in Cuba is still illegal for Americans.
Neither O’Donnell nor her fellow co-hosts pressed Donald on the topic.
Introducing Greenberg’s May report on This Morning, fill-in co-host Margaret Brennan declared: “Coming up in this half hour, the world's newest vacation hot spot – didn’t see it coming. Cuba is scrambling this morning to embrace a wave of American tourists...” Greenberg later announced: “Ever since President Obama said he wanted to reestablish diplomatic relations with Cuba back in December, more and more Americans have been clamoring to get there.”
On Tuesday, O’Donnell posed: “And any doubt that Cuba will grant you the ability to do this?” Donald assured her:
Well, obviously, that’s their decision. So we’re working closely with them and we certainly have every expectation that we’ll give them what they need so they feel comfortable. And we’ll be able to bring excited U.S. guests to Cuba on cruise ships for the first time in well over 50 years.
Wrapping up the exchange, fill-in co-host Anthony Mason noted: “All starting next year if all goes well?” Donald gushed: “All starting in May of 2016. It’s very exciting, it’s historic. We are privileged to be the first in our industry to have these approvals and we look forward to being the first, if not one of the first, to actually sail with Cuban approval.”
Mason and O’Donnell then both offered their “congratulations” to Donald.
Any controversy or criticism surrounding the Obama administration’s decision to reestablish diplomatic relations with Cuba was completely ignored in both Tuesday’s segment and the report in May.
