Karen Bass, a Biden VP Contender, Tells NBC News: “I’m Not a Communist.”

It’s never a great thing for your political aspirations when you have to go to the media and proclaim, in no uncertain terms, that you’re “not a communist.”

But that’s exactly the position Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) finds herself this week as she vies to get on Joe Biden’s ticket as his running mate. The California Democrat has come under scrutiny for her repeated trips to Cuba. That scrutiny has been especially pointed in Florida, where Cuban-American Republicans have warned that allowing a Castro sympathizer this close to the White House would be a major mistake for American voters.

“I’m not a socialist. I’m not a communist. I’ve belonged to one party my entire life and that’s the Democratic Party and I’m a Christian,” Bass told NBC News.

Both NBC News and Bass tried to downplay Bass’s associations with the Cuban regime, even suggesting that her trips to the island nation were related solely to assisting President Obama in his efforts to normalize relations with the Castro government. This, of course, is a blatant misrepresentation of her many trips to Cuba, most of which took place long before Obama ever wound up in the White House.

After Fidel Castro died in 2016, Rep. Bass highlighted his tenure at the top of the revolutionary regime by referring to him with the respectful title of “comandante en jefe.”

This week, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said that Bass’s longtime association with communist sympathizers like the Venceremos Brigade demonstrates “a stunning amount of interest in the Castro regime that goes back three decades.”

“Obviously this is something she’ll want to deflect from,” Rubio said. “I don’t believe in the last six decades there’s ever been someone considered for the vice presidency with this level of sympathy for the Castro regime. If, God forbid, Bass is elected Vice President she’ll be the highest ranking Castro sympathizer in the history of the U.S. government.”

In her interview with NBC News, Bass said that she didn’t believe that Cuban-Americans would fall for the “lies” being spread by Republicans.

“I don’t believe that it’s right to paint the Latino population with one brush, even the Cuban population,” Bass said. “The Latino population is often painted as only being interested in immigration, and the black population is painted as only interested in race. I don’t think any of those are true.”

Uh, it’s YOUR party that fosters those stereotypes, Rep. Bass.

If the California Democrat can overcome her associations with the Castro regime, it may not be the end of her troubles. Critics have also noted Bass’s involvement in several Nation of Islam events, her posed photo with one of the group’s top officials, and her possible association with the controversial Louis Farrakhan.

You have to wonder: If this radical, of all people, is on Biden’s shortlist, what exactly does he have planned for his presidency?