Senator Lindsey Graham teased the next country on President Donald Trump’s list set to be ‘freed.’
Since Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro and Iran’s Ali Khamenei felt the wrath of the president, another country appears to be on the Trump Administration’s list to be ‘freed.’
‘You see this hat? Free Cuba,’ Graham told Fox News. ‘Stay tuned. The liberation of Cuba is upon us. It’s just a matter of time now.’
Graham lifted a navy blue baseball cap with the Cuban flag embroidered on the front with the words ‘Free Cuba’ in silver lettering.
The South Carolina senator then held up another piece of merchandise that read, ‘Make Iran Great Again.’
‘President Trump said, “The only way to make Iran great is for the people to take over,”‘ Graham said while holding up the black baseball cap.
‘We’re marching through the world. We’re cleaning out the bad guys. We’re gonna have relationships with new people that will make us prosperous…I’ve never seen anybody like it. This is Ronald Reagan plus,’ he continued.
‘Donald Trump is resetting the world in a way nobody could have dreamed of a year ago. He is the greatest Commander in Chief of all time. Our military is the best of all time.
‘Iran is going down and Cuba is next.’
Senator Lindsey Graham lifted a navy blue hat with the Cuban flag underneath the words ‘Free Cuba’ in silver lettering, teasing President Trump’s next target to be ‘freed’
‘President Trump said, “The only way to make Iran great is for the people to take over,”‘ Graham said
On Sunday night, Graham told Fox News that he is a ‘big admirer of Ronald Reagan.’
‘But I’m here to tell you that Donald Trump is the gold standard for Republicans, maybe any president, when it comes to foreign policy,’ he added.
Cuba, led by 65-year-old President Miguel Diaz-Canel, has faced severe economic turmoil, mass migration and sporadic protests.
On Monday, Diaz-Canel said their government should ‘immediately’ focus on urgent transformations to its economic and social model amid dwindling oil reserves.
Trump dubbed the island a ‘failing nation’ and mounted pressure on its leaders to negotiate a deal, including restricting oil supplies.
The US Treasury Department somewhat eased restrictions for the sale of oil from Venezuela to the island following US sanctions that cost Cuba nearly $8 billion in revenue from March 2024 to February 2025, The Independent reported.
The nation remains under a decades-old US trade embargo first imposed during the Cold War after Fidel Castro’s communist revolution. The US had failed at an attempt to overthrow Castro’s regime, leading to the Cuban Missile Crisis – the closest the world has reached to nuclear war.
American forces prepped to invade Cuba at the time, where soviet missiles lay in easy striking distance of the US, but were later called off. Negotiations between former President John F Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1962 saw the missiles removed on the condition that the US doesn’t invade Cuba.
Cuba, led by 65-year-old President Miguel Diaz-Canel seen pictured, has faced severe economic turmoil, mass migration and sporadic protests
Amid the Cold War, leaders reached an agreement to remove Soviet missiles from Cuba if the US agreed to not invade Cuba. Former Prime Minister Fidel Castro seen pictured
The Biden administration had eased some oil restrictions, while Trump in his previous term tightened sanctions and re-designated Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Trump has said a ‘friendly takeover’ of Cuba could be possible. The administration has said that Diaz-Canel is too ideological and lacking in power to work an agreement, sources told the Miami Herald.
Graham’s comments come after Trump used the US military to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores de Maduro.
The pair are set to face criminal court proceedings for a 2020 indictment from the Department of Justice on federal charges, including narco-terrorism and drug trafficking.
NPR correspondent Eyder Peralta told Morning Edition’s Steve Inskeep and Michel Martin on Friday that his recent trip to Venezuela shocked him.
‘It is absolutely surreal because you land at the airport and the signs are in Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Chinese, which tells you just where this country was facing a few months ago,’ Peralta said.
‘And then you go out on the streets and people here tell you they feel like a weight has been lifted. For the first time in a long time, there are street protests. Opposition groups are holding public meetings.’
Then, days ago, the administration coordinated an airstrike with Israel on Iran, killing the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior officials.
Trump shared a picture of Nicolas Maduro in US captivity on his platform, Truth Social
Donald Trump (pictured sitting next to CIA Director John Ratcliffe and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio) said the US would now ‘run the country’ following Maduro’s capture
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other officials were killed in the airstrikes on Iran on February 28
The strikes on Iran have been condemned by both Democrats and Republicans, with lawmakers such as Adam Schiff claiming there was no ‘imminent threat to the United States.’
‘There would be nothing better than an end to this terrible, century – or decades-long dictatorship,’ Schiff told ABC News on March 1. ‘But there is no imminent threat to the United states that would justify exposing US troops to that kind of risk.’
The president, however, rejoiced in the strikes and said the people of Iran were thanking him for the attack.
‘Iran, which is being beat to HELL, has apologized and surrendered to its Middle East neighbors, and promised that it will not shoot at them anymore,’ the president wrote on TruthSocial on Saturday.
‘This promise was only made because of the relentless US and Israeli attack. They were looking to take over and rule the Middle East… It is the first time that Iran has ever lost, in thousands of years, to surrounding Middle Eastern Countries.
‘They have said, “Thank you President Trump.” I have said, “You’re welcome!” Iran is no longer the “Bully of the Middle East,” they are instead, “THE LOSER OF THE MIDDLE EAST,” and will be for many decades until they surrender, or, more likely, completely collapse!
‘Today, Iran will be hit very hard! Under serious consideration for complete destruction and certain death, because of Iran’s bad behavior, are areas and groups of people that were not considered for targeting up until this moment in time.’
