(CNN) It was a quick moment in the first debate of the 2018 Florida Senate race and if you weren't listening closely you might've missed it: Sen. Bill Nelson, the incumbent Democrat locked in a tight race with Governor Rick Scott, revealed that he was barred from entry into Cuba.

It came after Scott accused Nelson of appeasing the Castro regime for supporting President Obama's efforts to normalize relations with the Communist-run Island Nation just 90 miles of the coast of the United States.

"Indeed, we've got a problem in this hemisphere, not only with Maduro and Chavez before him, but also with Cuba and Nicaragua. And indeed, they have seen my position of the anti-Castro for so many years that one time, when I requested to go to Cuba to see the imprisoned fellow American that was there for four years, they will not let me in the country, because I've been so harsh," Nelson said.

Later on, he emphasized the point by saying, "The Cuban government will not let me come to Cuba because I have been so vigorously anti-Castro for years and years."

This was the first instance CNN could find of Nelson talking about being barred from travel to the island.

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