“I have talked to my colleagues in the House about that, and it’s certainly something that I would not say again. I have always supported the Cuban people, and the relationship that Barack Obama and Biden had in their administration in terms of opening up relations,” Bass (D-Calif.) said.

Obama moved to restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba in the final years of his presidency, reopening the U.S. embassy in Havana and relaxing trade restrictions with the Caribbean country.

“I happen to believe that sometimes the best way to change a regime is through having relations versus not,” Bass said, calling the Castro regime’s legacy “very troubling” and citing her work with the National Endowment for Democracy — the nongovernmental organization that promotes democratic reforms in Cuba and elsewhere abroad.

“For a country that is 90 miles away, for a policy that we’ve had decades [and] hasn’t worked, I think opening up relationships is the best way to go,” Bass said. “But I certainly understand the sensitivity and, to me saying that, the understanding that the translation in Spanish communicated something completely different. Lesson learned.”

The congresswoman’s remarks were in response to a POLITICO report detailing outrage among Florida Democrats over former Vice President Joe Biden’s vetting of Bass to become his running mate.

Prominent Democratic legislators and congressional lawmakers from the key swing state fear her Castro statement could imperil political inroads with Florida’s sizable Cuban American populations, as well as contribute to Republican efforts to brand the party as increasingly left wing and ideologically socialist.

Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, maintains a substantial lead over Trump in his adopted home state of Florida, according to the latest public polling.

A Quinnipiac University survey published last Thursday showed Biden outperforming Trump by 13 percentage points, and a CNN-SSRS poll released Sunday reported a 5-point advantage for Biden. Trump won Florida by 1.3 percentage points in 2016.

As Biden faces greater pressure to select a woman of color as his running mate amid nationwide protests against racial injustice and police brutality, Bass has emerged as sleeper pick because of her progressive bona fides, respect within the halls of Congress, and advocacy on matters of health care and race.

Asked Sunday whether she had communicated with Biden’s team in recent days regarding the vice presidential slot, Bass said: “Now, you know that I am not going to talk about that, that you have to deal with the campaign.”

But the congresswoman added that she was “willing to do anything and everything over these next 100 days to get President Biden elected” and was “willing to serve in any capacity.”