Donald Trump and Marco Rubio often accuse the Cuban regime of rolling out the red carpet for our adversaries. They're not wrong. It actively welcomes those working against United States interests, and I'm not just talking about China, Russian, and Iran.
If you'll remember, in March, a group of far-leftist folks from the U.S. and Europe — including members of Code Pink, commie activist Hasan Piker, and Ilhan Omar's daughter — flew into the crumblingly communist country and stayed in five-star hotels, enjoyed fancy meals, held concerts, and recorded podcasts, all while the Cuban people starve and live without electricity or water much of the time. They took photos with "president" Miguel Díaz-Canel and came back declaring that all was well on the island.
This crew spent some of their time riding around the city and viewing the Cubans as if they were on some sort of poverty safari, and Piker said the people just had an "island mindset" and that's why they just hung around in the streets all day. They came back reporting that things were just groovy down there and would be even better if Trump and Rubio would stop bullying them.
Well, independent journalist Nick Shirley recently visited Cuba and attempted to do the same thing... but he wanted to tell the real story of what's happening after decades of failed and corrupt communist rule. As you can imagine, he didn't get quite the welcome the others did. Not only that, but according to him, his equipment was seized, "spies" followed him around, and he barely escaped without being "kidnapped."
"Under communism there is no free speech, and those who show the reality or speak up are imprisoned," he posted on X on Monday evening. "Me going without a planned Cuban government guide nearly got me and my security taken hostage or imprisoned. The situation in Cuba is much worse than anyone knows."
Shirley has put himself in some precarious situations in the past, but this one may have been the most dangerous. Thankfully, he did make it out alive, but here's exactly what happened, according to him.
"Depending on when this comes out — or if it does — we are currently being held by by Cuban intelligence here in Havana, Cuba," begins the 13-minute video Shirley released on Monday. It was recorded from his iPhone in a hotel room in Cuba — that and a tiny microphone are the only pieces of equipment he says the regime didn't seize.
Shirley goes on to explain that he's wanted to make a video about how people live under communism for a long time, but one thing he didn't consider was that under communism, there is no freedom of speech or freedom of the press. With that in mind, the moment he arrived at the airport, despite doing everything right, including documentation, he said they took his cameras, his Meta Glasses, his GoPros, and even his microphones.
He says he wanted to show people what life is like — how there are no cars on the streets and how gasoline is $10 per gallon. He mentioned that the buildings are crumbling, there's little food, and mass poverty is everywhere. He mentioned visiting a hospital and said there was literally a line of people outside the building waiting for care, and surgeons were performing operations via flashlight.
Shirley wasn't alone — he did bring his own security guards — and that's how he knew he was under surveillance. Apparently, they had several run-ins with undercover police and random people recording them. At some point, he claims there were "Cuban intelligence" in his hotel lobby attempting to round him and his security up and "potentially imprison us or make it so we cannot leave Cuba." That's when they decided they needed to cut the trip short and leave.
Here's more in his own words:
So right, right now we're coming up with a game plan to escape Cuba. Our original flight is to leave on Saturday. Right now, it's Thursday, so we're going to be leaving tomorrow morning if we can make it to the airport. We're about a mile and a half away from the U.S. Embassy right now, which could be our possible way out of this situation by going to the embassy.
However, that does not stop Cubans from stopping us before we get to the embassy. It's about a mile and a half away, so we have to make it to the embassy. And ight now there's three Cubans — essentially a Cuban spy is down in the bottom of our hotel right now, and we have to figure out how we're going to escape. We're trying to get ahold of the embassy right now and see if we can stay there overnight and then buy our airplane ticket last minute so that doesn't pull off any red flags to the Cuban government before we arrive to the airport.
Shirley explained that to get out of there, he’d come up with a few options. The first was to hop from taxi to taxi and hope no one trailed them until they reached the airport. The second was to just stay inside the hotel and hope no one came for them in the middle of the night. The problem with that, he said, was that the next day was May 1, which was a major holiday in the country, and a big rally was planned just outside the hotel. The other option was to sneak out and try to make it to the embassy and get a private jet.
"This is probably the most dangerous situation I've ever been into," he said, later adding, "So if I make it out, this video gets seen. If it doesn't, I'm most likely in a prison cell, which I really hope is not the case."
Obviously, Shirley did make it out, and he is back home and safe, but if everything he says was true, he could have very well ended up a political prisoner — joining the 1,200 or so that Cuba currently has in its torture centers. However, given what a high-profile situation that would have been, I'm not 100% convinced the regime, which is already currently under almost maximum pressure from Trump and Rubio, would have had the guts to do it. But never underestimate the stupidity of leftists...
I'm sure we'll learn more about what happened, how Shirley escaped, and what he saw during his short trip (he says more is coming within 24 hours), but in the meantime, here's what he's released so far if you're interested in watching:
🚨 I was almost taken hostage in Cuba...
— Nick shirley (@nickshirleyy) May 4, 2026
I went to Cuba to document the humanitarian crisis and show life under 60+ years of communism and now amid the US blockade. Once I landed, they seized all my cameras except my iPhone and had intelligence agents following me all day until… pic.twitter.com/6VFQCOakGZ
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