The following is an edited transcript excerpt from The Michael Knowles Show. * * * Are we about to take Cuba? President Trump keeps talking about it. The first time, you might say, well, it’s a joke. The second time, maybe it’s still a joke. The thing about jokes, though, is they often have an element of truth to them. First, on Monday, when asked about the communist nation 90 miles off the Florida coast, he said this: The Cuban government is talking with us. They’re in a big deal of trouble, as you know. They have no money. They have no anything right now. But they’re talking with us, and maybe we’ll have a friendly takeover … We could very well end up having a friendly takeover of Cuba. Trump: “Maybe we’ll have a friendly takeover of Cuba. We could very well end up having a friendly takeover of Cuba.” pic.twitter.com/YCI8WcxzBG — unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) March 2, 2026 Source: @unusual_whales/FoxNews/X.com This was the line he made a few days ago: maybe we’ll have a friendly takeover of Cuba. Then yesterday, Thursday, he brings up Cuba again.  All of a sudden you see—where’s Marco? He’s not around anymore. I don’t see him, he’s doing some job. Next one is going to be… we want to do that special Cuba, he’s waiting. He says let’s get this one finished first. We could do them all at the same time, but bad things happen if you watch countries over the years. If you do them all too fast, bad things happen. We’re not going to let anything bad happen to this country. Trump announces Cuba is the US’ next target. Follow: @AFpost pic.twitter.com/GLHIHKv5fB — AF Post (@AFpost) March 5, 2026 Trump says, “Look—we’re not going to do it right away. But maybe Marco is going to head on down.” Marco Rubio, who’s wanted to topple the communist regime in Cuba for his entire life. Are we going to do it? I think Trump is serious about taking Cuba. I think it makes sense to take Cuba. And let me remind you that this is something that basically everybody agreed on until recently. Trump’s most vocal critic who used to be on the Right and now is on the Left — Bill Kristol — worked in a Republican White House, was a major thought leader on the Right who then he became a Biden guy and a Kamala guy — even Bill Kristol, who hates Donald Trump with the fire of a thousand suns, said some years ago that we should take Cuba. We have already taken Cuba on multiple occasions. We’ve controlled Cuba three or four times over the last hundred years. This is not that weird. It’s 90 miles off the coast of Florida. The regime is starving right now. They don’t have oil. They don’t have leadership. Virtually no one can even name the president of Cuba. I can, because I’m particularly interested in the tobacco industry — and also it’s a nice place, Cuba. But can you name the leader of Cuba? No. His name is Miguel Díaz-Canal. We remember the Castros. Fidel Castro ruled for decades and then his brother Raúl took over. But the Castros are now gone. After Trump took over Venezuela, Cuba has really been on the brink of collapse. So there does seem to be a method to this. And after Iran — maybe check in five or six weeks — maybe Cuba’s next. Not so bad.