Rep. Carlos Gimenez, a Florida Republican whose family fled Cuba when he was young, has sharply criticized Democratic Senate candidate Angie Nixon over comments she made about the Cuban government. He told Fox News Digital that Nixon did not go far enough in condemning the island's regime.
Nixon, a Florida state representative and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, is challenging Sen. Ashley Moody, R-Fla. The dispute grew out of a CBS News interview that aired Monday, in which she was asked whether she considers Cuba a dictatorship.
Her answer was: "That is what people have told me. I have never been to Cuba, and so I will have to take their word for it."
CBS initially posted a tweet saying Nixon refused to answer the question. The post has since been deleted. Nixon called it "a serious failure of editorial reporting" and wrote online that saying she declined to answer was "categorically false." She added: "That is not journalism. It is misinformation." CBS later re-uploaded the footage on X and apologized for the misleading language.
Gimenez was not persuaded that the matter was settled. "There is no ambiguity: Cuba is a communist dictatorship that has imprisoned, tortured, and murdered innocent people for decades," he said. "Floridians deserve leaders who stand unequivocally for freedom, not politicians who whitewash the horrors of communism." Cuba has been under communist rule since 1959.
Ian Vallecillo, a South Florida lawmaker whose family escaped the regime in Nicaragua, also weighed in. He described the episode as "a perfect example of ideological cognitive dissonance" and said acknowledging Cuba's dictatorship would mean confronting the failure of a Marxist system he said she appears sympathetic to. Vallecillo accused Nixon of "showing her true colors" and argued that DSA members cannot recognize that they are "on the wrong side of history." Nixon did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
In the same interview, Nixon criticized the decades-long U.S. embargo on Cuba and voiced support for returning to policies from the Obama era. She argued that approach could help address the island's widespread blackouts and shortages of medical care. Nixon and other DSA members have long contended that the embargo contributes to worsening living conditions for Cubans.
President Barack Obama began a diplomatic thaw in 2014, restoring relations and easing some economic and travel restrictions dating to the Cold War. His administration also removed Cuba from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism in 2015 and eased limits on certain trade.
President Donald Trump's administration has maintained that some sanctions are aimed at businesses tied to Cuba's military, including Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A., known as GAESA, a conglomerate controlled by the armed forces. Reports put its worth at more than $14.5 billion and say it oversees 37% of the country's gross domestic product. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said: "That's not sanctions on the Cuban people. The Cuban people don't benefit from GAESA."
