Bill de Blasio Excoriated for Che Quote Amid Miami's Cuban Exiles

A bipartisan group of Floridians is blasting New York Mayor Bill de Blasio for using a phrase attributed to Marxist revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara in the heart of South Florida’s Cuban exile community.

De Blasio, a presidential hopeful who was in town for the Democrats’ first debate, was addressing a group of striking ramp workers at Miami International Airport Thursday. Videos shared on social media show him demand that airports put working people first.

'Hasta la victoria siempre,' he concluded by saying, which translates as 'until victory, always.' He didn’t directly mention Guevara in the video clip shared on social media, but the unique word order would be hard to stumble upon by accident.

Republican Senator Rick Scott held it out as an example of Democrats’ supposed embrace of socialism.

The words socialism and communism are anathema to exiles from Cuba and Nicolas Maduro’s Venezuela, and Republicans have sought to draw parallels between Democrats’ proposals and the regimes that many local residents fled. Florida, the seat of those exile communities, is also America’s largest swing state in presidential elections.

Of course, very few Democrats actively embrace the term 'socialism,' aside from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. And the policy proposals Republicans most label 'socialist' -- like single-payer health systems -- are substantially used in countries including Canada and the U.K.

But some Florida Democrats also shot back at De Blasio Thursday. Annette Taddeo, a state senator from Miami, said she was "utterly disgusted."

De Blasio later apologized, saying he was intending only to speak in Spanish and did not realize the phrase was associated with Guevara.