On Monday, I shared with you how independent journalist Nick Shirley went to communist Cuba to try to get an idea what’s really happening on the ground there and how the people feel about everything — their “leadership,” communism, Donald Trump, the lack of oil and electricity, etc.
What resulted — and I don’t think even Shirley expected any of this — was that the regime didn’t let him have a moment of peace. Upon arrival, his cameras and equipment were seized at the airport, he and his two bodyguards were followed by undercover agents, they were interrogated by a two-star general, and they essentially had to flee the country, cutting the trip a couple of days short.
Shirley has been promising video from his trip all week (they didn’t take his iPhone or a tiny microphone he’d bought, so he was still able to do some field work), and he finally released it. To be honest, I hadn’t planned on working much this weekend, but I sat down and watched the video and knew I had to share. It’s pretty powerful.
But it’s not the threats to Shirley and his team that caught my attention. It’s the responses from the Cuban people he was able to talk to before the regime began harassing him. Many of them refused to speak, fearing for their own safety. Some spoke but with their faces blurred. Others spoke but got quiet when he asked them certain political questions. And some, you could tell, just didn’t give a flying flip anymore and were ready to share with the world what their lives are like. They’re tired and losing their fear.
One guy who spoke at length had a great response when Shirley asked him what he would tell people in the United States who are beginning to embrace socialism and communism more and more these days. He said:
No. That’s the worst thing that could ever happen, the worst thing you could ever do in life, is to go for socialism or communism, because it’s utter crap. It’s a no-go. It leads to misery, to oppression, to hunger, to everything. Look, nothing you can do… Nothing.
Your salary is only enough to buy a bottle of cooking oil. How do you think you can live like that? How can you live with a ration book that only gives you one or three pounds of sugar and one pound of salt? And there, every fifteen, every four, six months, seven years, they give you a chicken breast or an egg. The egg hasn’t come for a year. It’s been a year since we last had eggs. Imagine that.
He spoke of all the countries, like Mexico, sending humanitarian aid to the Cuban people, confirming that they never see it. “Those people who are coming, bringing all that aid, you don’t see that aid,” he said. “I don’t know where they’re delivering it, but you don’t see that aid.”
As I reported earlier this year, when Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum sent tons of food and hygiene products to Mexico, it was sold in military-controlled stores that only accept U.S. dollars, and it was sold it bulk at prices few in Cuba can afford.
Something else that was blatantly clear is that everyone Shirley spoke with is hopeful that Donald Trump and Marco Rubio will save them from the regime soon, so they can live normal lives. When Shirley asked this particular gentleman what he thought of Trump and Rubio, he said:
Donald Trump and Marco Rubio, I’m waiting for you, please, to see if we can live like people, live like human beings, have our basic needs met like a human being, because we’re living worse than animals. We’re living worse than animals.
“Do you think it would be good for the United States to help Cuba?” Shirley asked.
“Sure, of course. Everyone’s waiting for the intervention. The intervention, because people think that the intervention will kill people, no,” the man replied. “They already know the key points, they know there’s a central committee, that there’s ground zero, they know. Everyone knows where the Castros are.”
That seemed to be the sentiment with everyone willing to talk.
The conversation ended there because a woman began recording them with her phone. It’s not clear if she was someone undercover working for the regime or simply a snitch. In countries like Cuba, there is major incentive to report your anti-regime neighbors, potentially landing them in jail. It’s like that in Venezuela, too. It’s sort of what many Democrats tried to bring to the U.S. during the COVID pandemic.
In March, a group of Code Pink idiots and Hasan Piker and a bunch of other leftists went to Cuba and said these people like living like this. It’s their “island mindset.” Shirley’s video tells an entirely different story, and I hope you’ll take the 35 minutes or so and watch it to get a clear picture of what life is like there. It’s something you won’t find anywhere else.
🚨Inside Communist-Controlled Cuba:
As Cuba faces its largest humanitarian crisis in years amid growing tensions with the US, I went to see what 60+ years of communism has done to a country.Within 24 hours I was planning my escape out of the country after being followed by… pic.twitter.com/g6fHiaab4V
— Nick shirley (@nickshirleyy) May 9, 2026
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