The Daily - Cuba Under Siege

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

In January, after the capture of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, the Trump administration turned its attention to Cuba. In the months since, the White House has used every tool at its disposal to unseat the Communist government. In May, sparking fears of a humanitarian crisis, Cuba reported that it had officially run out of oil as a result of the U.S. oil blockade. Today, Lynsea Garrison, a senior producer for “The Daily,” talks with one Cuban about how his life has transformed under President Trump’s pressure campaign, and what the future holds for Cuban people. Guest: Lynsea Garrison, senior producer on “The Daily” for The New York Times. Background reading:  Cuba’s already-struggling schools are ending the academic year early because of the crippling fuel shortage caused by the U.S. oil blockade. The blockade has deepened a humanitarian crisis, forcing Cubans to lean on the island’s long tradition of community solidarity. Photo: Lisette Poole González for The New York Times For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.  Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From the New York Times, I'm Natalie Kittrow-F. This is the Daily. Is the Cuban government the Trump administration's next target, Mr. Secretary? For the past six months, the Trump administration has been carrying out a maximum pressure campaign against Cuba. Well, the Cuban government is a huge problem. Yeah, the Cuban government is a huge problem. So is that a yes? I think they're in a lot of trouble, yes.

Yeah, Cuba's going to be next. Cuba's going to be – Cuba's a mess. It's a failing country. And they're going to be next. That campaign has included an oil embargo, an indictment against the country's former president, and economic sanctions. What we're seeing now is a whole new level of punishment.

Will you make a public commitment today to rule out U.S. regime change in Cuba? regime change? Yes. Oh, no, I think we would love to see the regime no change. And as Cuba's oil has dried up, The country's blackouts have gotten longer and longer. Cuba is a country running on fumes. The country will run out of aviation fuel today.

And fears have grown about a spiraling humanitarian crisis. The island nation's power grid completely collapsed today, leaving the country with little to no access to basic services like water, food, and medical care. Doctors here say across the country, people are dying because of the fuel crisis. No power has led to women delivering babies and delivering babies and children. dark hospitals. And then, well, earlier Cuba's energy minister said the island had completely run out of fuel oil and diesel. Cuba reported it had officially run out of oil.

Cuba has essentially run out of oil. Not essentially. They have run out of oil. Cuba's at the end of line. They're very much at the end of the line. They have no money. They have no oil. Cuba's in its last moments of life.

I do believe I'll be the honor of. Having the honor of taking Cuba, that's a big honor. Taking Cuban, in some form, yeah, taking Cuba. I mean, whether I free it, take it, I think I could do anything I want with it. Today, my colleague Lindsay Garrison talks to one Cuban about how his life has been completely transformed under Trump's pressure campaign and what the future holds for the Cuban people. It's Friday, July 10th. Gustavo Torres Armis is 25 years old. He lives in a residential neighborhood in Havana,

just across the bay from the capital center. He lives in an apartment with his mother and father, and every day he commutes to his job at a contemporary art gallery in the city. He told me the pay is pretty bad, but he loves the work. So he writes articles about Cuban art on the side for real money. We could have talked about so many things. We could have gone back generations through his family's story in Cuba's decades-old conflict with the U.S.

Or we could have talked about how Cuba's energy crisis, which started around the pandemic, has only gotten worse since the U.S. blockade in January. But instead of going back years, or even months, Gustavo thought the best way to explain this current crisis was to walk me through a single single day. typical day in a city under siege. Yeah, so basically I wake up early in the morning.

Maybe I have water, maybe I don't. So if I have water, I can get ready like normal and go to the bus stop. And if I don't have water, I have the choices. So if I don't have water, it's more likely than not that I have some stored water, right? because whenever we get water, we quickly store it and, you know, we're always prepared. But in the rare case that we didn't prepare water, I basically have to carry water. So I live in fifth floor in a building. And if I don't have water, I have to go all the way down to the system.

It's like the water tank. Yeah, it's like the building's water tank. And there's usually like a person in the building that takes care of it. So I asked him, hey, can you open the system? I have no water. And there's usually not enough water to pump into the building, but enough water that you can throw a bucket and bring it up after if it was a well. Okay. So he'll tell me, oh, it's empty or no, we have some. And if we have some, he will open the system.

I will throw a bucket and I will bring it up to the fifth floor. And I repeat the process at least five times. so I can have enough water for that day. Have you ever gone down there and the person who kind of mans the tank says we don't have any today? Yeah. But in that case, we're just like, oh, well, I mean, what can you do? And just get ready with what we can or try to get ready in other ways. You know, right now, everybody here is struggling more or less in the same way.

So if I go to my job and I couldn't wash my teeth, I'm going to say, listen, and I couldn't wash my mouth in my house. Can I do it here? And he's to be like, oh, sure. And I just wash my mouth in my job. If I have water in my job, maybe I don't have water in my job. Maybe my building doesn't have any water, but maybe a neighbor does. And he'll lend me some water so I can wash my mouth. I see. But basically, as you can imagine, it's kind of, let's say annoying, having to carry five, buckets of water to your fifth floor house just to wash your mouth, your face, and get ready to go to work. But we do that. How often would you say that you wake up without water? Like in an average week? How many days? Out of seven days of the week, maybe six. Wow. Okay, that's a lot. Yeah, basically never. I open and have like actual water coming out in the mornings. Okay. Wow. And, you know, everything in Cuba is, there's usually more than it seems at first sight. So in the case of water specifically, it is a combination of, you know, we're in the middle of a drought. So basically we don't have, you know, the rains that feel the water preserves.

And that's one issue. Another reason is that the piping, the underground piping that pumps the water to the buildings and the houses, this piping system is extremely. old. It's very fragile. It hasn't been properly maintained since from the 30s, the 40s, you know, like a long time ago. And so another thing that affects this, and this is more relevant to the whole Trump thing, all of these water piping, like the pumping of the water, needs electricity. And if we have like an energy crisis when you have 24 hours or 20 hours with no power, you can't pump water because you have no energy. So all of these things combined, you know?

Yeah. And so after all of this to get ready to work, I got to the bus station. So the problem is, and this is like a specific problem to me and people who live where I live has. Basically, in Havana we have kind of like an underground tunnel that connects the main city with the rest of the city, right? that tunnel, you can't cross it by walking. And you can cross it in like a bike. It's illegal to walk in the tunnel because the tunnel doesn't have the infrastructure for regular people walking.

You can only cross it on a car, on a bus. Okay. Not even on motorbike. It can only be one of those two things. Got it. And the problem is, since we have a few crises and we have no buses, and we also have no cars, how do you cross the tunnel?

That's like my main everyday struggle to go and to come back of work. I cannot cross the tunnel walking. A little pause, but Cubans tend to exaggerate to make a point. So when I told you that we have no cars, it's an exaggeration. We do have cars. You will see cars. But it's very low traffic. Okay, got it.

Now, the problem is that the only bus that we actually see, because I mean, this is not that acceleration now, we do not have any buses. Like, there is no public transportation. That system has basically collapsed. Since January, you don't see any bus. Never. So we have a bus in this side of the city. In Spanish, it's called the cyclobos. So the cycle bus And this bus exists At least since the 90s And it's not for people

It's for bikes It's basically like a hollow bus That carries the motorcycles And the bikes Through the tunnel So this is the one bus that comes to that bus station Yes That's the thing that I take every day

To go to work Okay Are these buses crowded When you get into them Yes Yes Yes, it's very crowded, but I mean, it's not crowded to the point that it won't be able to close the doors. Okay.

But it is crowded. So when I get into the bus, the cycle bus, and in my everyday commute to work, it's like you're getting into the bus with zombies. The human people look so drain. And again, I probably have looked. like that at some point too. People are just so, so, so tired. You can see a lot of people with like, you know, hollow faces, eye bags. You know, the woman done with makeup. I'm not saying this to be like yeah. It sounds like women have to wear makeup or whatever. I'm just saying it in like, you know, people just stop caring. Or you see that people are like very, very irritated. You know,

something that in another moment would have been just like, you know, a small misunderstanding could turn into a whole fight because they suddenly got very angry. You know, they just had problems and they've taken it on that day with, you know, it is like that. Yeah. So it usually takes me like the whole ride, usually like a half an hour. And I really like looking through the window in that specific bus ride. because it's mostly just empty road with coast area. Because I live very, very, very close to the coast. And so that bus ride is like, I don't know, maybe 15 minutes of going through an empty road

that only has a lot of palm trees and coconut trees, the grass, the rocks, and the sea. So it's a really pretty view. I really like it. And then you get into the tunnel, which is like darkness. And when you emerge from the other side of the tunnel, it's like walking through a portal. There is so much trash. So much trash. So after every block, you will see a huge landfill, basically. We have so many.

There is so, so, so much trash. Trash to the amount that it covers the street. This is because there is no fuel for the garbage truck. So the garbage truck can come and collect the trash. So we're just drowning in it. And one of the things that you notice in this, this actually really shocked me. So in the part of the city where I leave, it is very common to just burn the trash. Okay.

So the neighbors would put all the trash in this huge landfill and they will just burn it. But this is very common in this side of the city because, again, it's very open. So if you light a fire, it will burn all the trash. die out and nothing will happen. I see. But something that I really notice is that right now, they are also burning the trash in the city. And it's awful.

It's so awful because you have all of these cramped apartments and very narrow streets with burning trash and smoke everywhere. And it is like this very pungent trash smoke smells. It stinks so bad. And it is actually like really bad for your health. Like a lot of people are having like breathing problems because of it. And this is something that it really shocked me when I saw it because I didn't thought that people would get to the point of burning trash in the main city.

But what choice do they have? Like if they don't burn it, the trash is going to eat them. There are so many mice. There's so many mosquitoes. You know, Cuba has like a whole menagerie of mosquito related diseases. Like mainly chicken gooey. We have a lot of dengue. Yeah.

I mean, we just got out of basically a pandemic of mosquito-related viruses. Uh-huh. That, you know, it doesn't get reported because who cares about us? But basically, if you didn't get sick, you knew at least five people who were sick. Wow. It's, yeah, it was really difficult. And now we have no medicine. There's no bills anywhere.

no fuel for like, you know, the exterminators. Uh-huh. Like, you know, there's no fuel for the garbage truck. There's not going to be fuel for the machine that kills mosquitoes. Oh, my goodness. Keeping with my everyday experience, I take my little boss and I walk to my job. And my job is relatively close, so it's not like a long walk. I just walk through the streets

and this is like the historic side of Havana so they are usually like rather tight streets it's like a small maze or like a labyrinth because if you aren't familiar with it you may get lost so yeah I just walk through all of these alleys and you usually hear like when you're walking down the street

Cuban music you know like salsa charanga regga regga some people will tell you that

you know salsa is not Cuban music Souths Puerto Rican but the vase is cute

and anyway and then I get to like the alley in which the gallery is and the gallery

is a huge very modern style gallery you know like very tall ceiling a great

open space great lighting, white walls. And at work, I do, my work is kind of office related. But I also have other parts of my job basically giving tours to the gallery. You know, visitors come, they may have questions, I answer. But we have no tourists. We have like maybe one or two a day. Which, again, I don't know how it is over there.

But here in Cuba, we usually would have way more visitors. But right now, we have no foreigners who were like another main source of income. Like there are some businesses that are very, very dependent on tourism that are like basically, basically have been destroyed because of the crisis. So we don't have anyone. What is that like for the gallery to be so empty? What does that make you feel? Well, at least for me, the first feeling that you feel is that you're there for no reason, right?

You know, like I have so much difficulties going on in my house, in my everyday life, the commute. And, you know, I went through all of that to just sit all day here doing nothing because we have no visitors. Because maybe the office work that I'm doing in the gallery, I could have done it at my house. So you kind of get like this frustrating feeling of like I came to work for no reason today. But the one visitor you had at the day, like the one and only that you have, we'll usually thank you for being open. They will be like, oh, you're like the only gallery that is like open every day. Because that's the other thing.

We are basically one of the few galleries that are open basically every day. Most galleries are opening like once a week. And I kind of. it did make you feel like at least you did something with your day. Maybe not much, but you know, you did something. It wasn't all for nothing. But it only makes you feel, let's say good for like maybe an hour because the rest of the day still went on and nobody else came.

And then at the end of the day, when I finished doing whatever I was doing at work, I have to do like the real struggle of going back home because that's the difficult part not going to work. We'll be right back. So going back home, that's the difficult part, not going to work. So if I can work at like 5 p.m. At that hour, I just go to the bus station for the cyclobus. But a lot of the time, maybe the cyclobus is so filled with people.

Or sometimes there is a bus in the morning. but there is not a bus in the afternoon because they run out of fuel midday. Oh, really? So there is no cyclobus. Or maybe after work I decided to visit a friend or maybe I decided to go to a new art show. And that is something that impacts your everyday life because you have to be like, well, do I visit my friend or do I go to my house? Because, you know, it's not sure that I could get into the bus if I visit my friend now.

I see. Yeah, because you might end up stranded somewhere, depending on the choice Yeah. And so there's people that I haven't seen in months. Like, there's a feeling that a lot of young people have that you're wasting your youth, you know, because you can't really do the stereotypical things that someone your age would do. But anyways. So, for whatever reason I can get into the bus, I have to improvise. I will basically hitchhike. Oh, wow. So I go to the street light that is like in a very busy area. And there's usually quite a few people who are doing the same. You know, we are just there.

All of us, hitchhiking. And most of the cars that go through that street light are probably crossing the tunnel because they're going to the other side. And they don't charge you or anything. You know, it's just hitchhiking. Because how much, just to compare it, how much would a taxi be? Like if you took a taxi home, how much would that cost you? To put it into perspective, my monthly salary is $3,600 in Q&Peso.

Now, a taxi that crosses the tunnel, if I take it during the day, it will charge me $700. And if I take it after 7 p.m., it would be $1,000. Oh, wow. So basically a third of my salary. So that's like the last choice. Because after the measures that Trump took, that same car ride costed me 300. Wow. And suddenly in January, it's a thousand.

Is that when you started to hitchhike? Like around that time, were you doing that more often? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I don't really like hitchhiking. Yeah. Because, you know, you're basically counting on the charity of strength.

years and it's kind of humiliating for you, you know. It's kind of like begging. Do you feel that way sometimes? Right now, no. I felt like that in the past, you know, when things were better. But right now, things have gotten so low, so bad that I'm just like, you know, whatever, I have to do whatever it takes. And by the way, the drivers right now see how everything is and they are like genuinely trying to help you. I see. And when you get home, what does that look like normally? Well, I mean, something that you have to understand throughout this whole story. Yeah. Is that my house, because I just realized that I didn't tell you, my neighborhood is in a part of the city that has power all the time.

It's not because some, like, important person lives there or whatever. is because the electric system is underground. Oh, okay. And a lot of places here in Cuba have, you know, electric posts. And so those get power orders constantly. But the underground systems that are very few need to consistently have power because if you cut the electricity to that system, it can get moist from the ground.

And when you put it back, it creates, you know, like an electric cut. And it could destroy the whole system. And to repair the system, it would be so insanely expensive and difficult that it genuinely is more effective for the government to just let them have power all the time. Got it. Interesting. Okay. So we technically always have power. That makes me like extremely privileged. right now in Cuba.

And I'm telling you this because there is people that wake up with no power, get ready to work, and they will come back to work, there is no power. I mean, my aunt lives in Kamawa, which is like, you know, a different province of Cuba. And on average, my aunt has two hours of light a day. Wow.

By the way, this is not like a rigid thing. I tell you two hours because that's on average. Sometimes she has four hours. Sometimes she only has one. It has happened that she has none. So sometimes she has been like 24 or 48 hours with no power. Oh, wow. But in those two hours, which by the way, they are not like scheduled.

She doesn't know when the light is going to appear. And it has happened that she has been sleeping. and the light suddenly comes at 2 a.m. And at that hour, she gets up and she started washing her clothes. She puts the washing machine and she started doing her stuff because she has to take advantage of whenever she has power. So, yeah, it's really bad. Are you pretty close with your aunt?

You sound like you're pretty close. Yes, yes, yes. I am very close to my aunt. She's like my... I mean, she is my godmother, you know, by the church and stuff like that. So, yeah, I honestly, and this is going to sound a little bit depressive. But I'm kind of thankful that my grandmother died before all of this. Because it would have been so difficult for her and for my aunt to go through all of this, you know.

Hmm When did she pass? In 2021 It just would have been too hard Yeah I mean With the whole difficult it is To get medicine

And stuff like that It would have been really difficult for us It would be really hard in general So Depending on how tired I arrived like at my house, sometimes I have to do something. Like sometimes you get from work and your mom is like quickly, they deliver the rice. We have to go buy it.

So this is one of those things that I have to explain. So basically, you know, we have our bodega. And right now you're seeing that there's always a product that is missing. And some of these products like rice, for example. example, are delivered to the store randomly and late, like extremely late. It could be that you didn't see any rise in January or in February or in March. So you will see that there are people waiting for the rise. Like we live literally like across the street from the bodega so we can see when the truck bringing the deliveries arrives.

sometimes my mom just watches through the window, oh, did the truck deliver? Oh, no, not yet. And, you know, after years of doing this, housewives become kind of like good at it. Like, they know at which times of the month usually the truck arrives. So, you know, they will listen to a truck noise and you'll be like, oh, could it be? And she will be, oh, no, not yet. It's next week. And yeah, she'll be right. It's next week, not now. So, you know, she'll see that the truck is there.

and she started like calling all the neighbors like, oh, Juanita, the rice is here, tell this other person. And, you know, it's a whole event. And my role in the grocery shopping area is basically I held my mom like carrying the shopping. You go with her to carry. I go with her, yes. And so we go and buy those stuff if we can find them. I see.

And rice is not so much of a problem because, in general rice is pretty sheep. And most people have rice like saved up. So you can usually get a neighbor to loan you some rice or to sell it to you or to just gift it to you. But there are some products that you use a lot

like cooking oil. That if it gets lost like that, then you really feel it because you have to spend a lot of money buying it from a private business. Do you know how much cooking oil is cost? Well, cooking oil specifically, I can't really tell you right now. I don't know. I can tell you how much is sugar right now. Oh, okay. Because my dad had to buy some sugar literally today. And it actually increased price.

It's more expensive now than it was last week. So remember my salary that I told you like $3,600.600? Yes. That's my salary. My dad's is like $4,000. And my mom's is 6,000. Okay. Because my mom works as a chemistry and biology teacher in a sports school. Oh, cool. So basically, one pound of sugar is 800 pesos. So for sugar to eat 800 pesos is like pretty expensive right now.

It's like... Compared to other fat stuff. I just did the math. it's roughly like 6% of your total household income. Yeah, it's quite a bit. And that's just sugar. You know, like maybe oil, I don't have to win how much is oil right now, but, you know, without cooking oil, you can't cook.

So it's like my household, usually by the end of the month, it's still okay. Like we're not like maybe the last week of the month we can't eat anymore. we're not that bad but we are very much like ready for the next pay soon because food is really, really expensive here in Cuba

it's really expensive yeah there's people who pick food from the trash can there's people who are very, very hard time right now do you see people pick food out of trash Yes and it is something that shocked me a lot

because maybe you won't believe this or maybe your audience won't believe this. But 10 years ago, it would be really, really difficult to find a beggar, a homeless person, somebody eating out of a trash can, stuff like that. That's like unconceivable 10 years ago. And so imagine going from never seeing a homeless person in your life to seeing like people, like lots of people, okay? like 10, 20 people sleeping in the ground in the night, picking food out of a trash can and eating it.

That's really shocking because you never saw that before. And that's what we're seeing right now. So, yeah, food is really expensive. There's a lot of people who don't eat. And again, there is always some product that is missing. Cigars, for example, are missing. Not cigars, because you guys call cigars to other things. Cigarettes are missing.

Yeah. Right now it's the worst time to have any kind of vice here in Cuba. Coffee. And here in Cuba we drink like black hard coffee. We don't have like, you know, the whole Starbucks thing. Like the lattes. Yeah, no. Most of the people that I know, and certainly myself, hate American coffee.

Like, it's so watery for our taste. Some people here They tell you like Oh, American coffee is ass water Because it's just like Some browny water that tastes like nothing We drink like black strong coffee That is you have to drink a little

Because a lot of it is like bad for you And coffee is missing And a lot of people miss their coffee Especially other people Because other people are used to drink a lot of coffee Yeah And you know it's kind of People will be

probably more capable of resisting all of this if you at least had the little things, you know? Because you're like, oh, well, I can't even drink my little cup of coffee that I'm used to doing for the last 50 years. Like, I know all people who tell you that they're okay with not eating yesterday, but that they're missing their coffee. It is always the little things that hurt you the most. So after that, we all get together in the kitchen. So I will get home, I will change. And I help my mom cooking if she needs it. And in the case of cooking, like, this is one of the areas where the privilege is the most evident.

Because since we usually have power, we usually have electricity here. We just use our electric oven for cooking. But there are many people who are filling it. A lot of people are basically cooking with wood, you know, with like firewood. It's like a very primitive thing. You have to cook in the street or you have to cook in like your backyard using like a campfire basically and you put your like a cooking pot on top of it. And I know a lot of people who are like that. Like one of my coworkers, he has a house.

So he basically uses the backyard to create this kind of campfire. And that's where he cooks. And he also uses the campfire to heat water for bathing or for boiling the water to drink it. But yeah, you know, people are saying that we are devolving to like neanderful times. And then my dad goes watch the news. my mom started making the dinner and we all have dinner like this is not like necessarily

like a Cuban tradition or whatever it's more like a my household tradition that you know we set the table and everyone sits down at the table and we eat together and my mom is very strict with that so do you ever talk about

with your family why this crisis is the way it is like who who are what you blame? Yeah. We usually talk a lot about the crisis because it's something that is like an everyday thing. You know, on the one hand, my family in particular,

it's very like anti-Trump because Cuba and the United States were starting to have kind of like better relations. We were starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel with Obama. And Trump blocked that. And so, you know, it was kind of sad because a lot of people thought that, you know, maybe we will see relations with Cuba and the United States. But this is like, by far the worst crisis that Cuba has had in, like, its existence.

For me, at least, it feels worse than anything that I have ever lived. and most importantly, unlike many other crises, we don't really see like a solution or an endpoint to this one. Yeah. Like in the past, people were like, well, you know, maybe we have this small fuel crisis right now that will get solved when we get more fuel, right? So with this one, it's like we don't see that we'll get more fuel.

Like we've had recently some fuel donations from Mexico, some from Russia. And it's like, that's great, that's fine. But that's only going to last for a while. After that, we're going back to the beginning. So we don't see an end to this. And most people feel, me included, feel rather hopeless about it. We're like, things are only going to get worse from here. There's no way out.

so, you know, maybe we'll end up like Haiti, you know, like completely collapsed. People don't really see an end to this. I don't know. But I would say that most people here in Cuba, even if they understand that Trump is making the crisis worse, a lot of people think that the problem at the end of the day is the Cuban government, not Trump. And that's why some people say, oh, Trump should bomb. us. Some other people are like, maybe we should like sell the country to China or to Russia. But people just in general feel like there is no future with this government. And I see,

you know, I understand all of these positions. Like I get it. Where would you say you fall? I don't know. Because you know, one thing is what you think is right. And another whole thing is what you think is possible or more likely to happen. Yeah. Honestly, the ideal thing for me would be that the United States lifts the embargo, lifts the blockade, and the Cuban government gets completely changed, like, completely change. Some new government comes around, and we finally have some form of democracy. I don't know. At the end of the day, it's kind of difficult to be thinking in this kind of, like, higher things like democracy and all of that.

when you have more pressing things to be thinking about, right? So a lot of people are like, listen, I don't care about dictatorship or democracy. I want food and water and to leave a little. You know,

when you have been in a crisis with a lot of scarcity for 67 years, there's a point in which you're like, let's do whatever it takes for us to finally breathe and have things. Yeah.

So around maybe, I don't know, 10 p.m. Basically, fate has been generous with water. Like, if we have water to spare, I would take a bath to go to sleep, you know? And my room is kind of windy because we're pretty high, you know, the fifth floor. From my window, I can see the sea. And right now I have, like, my windows open to get some wind, which is, that's, like, a blessing. But, yeah. And when you go to sleep, do you have anxiety about the next day?

Or is it something you don't even think about because it's normal? Yeah, I think it's the later. Yeah. Because at some point, all of these difficult things that we're going through become normal. You just get used to them and they get normalized. So, you know, so for a lot of Cubans, it's kind of hard to give you a detailed, what's going on in Cuba thing. Because for us, it's like as normal as it is to you to just go to Walmart and grab a soda.

For us, that's normal. It's normal to not have power. It's only when you stop and you look at it, it's like you say, oh, wait, this is not how most people live. This is like not normal. But for all of all, struggling is normal. Like, I go to my work, for example, and, you know, the, the doorman, the guy that works at the door of the gallery. Yeah. I would go to work and the dormant will tell me, oh, thank God you came because, you know, I feel like painting.

I couldn't eat anything yesterday. It's normal. I would be like, oh, that sucks. If I have some money, I try to buy him something. But if I don't have any money, I can't do anything. I can just say, oh, well, you know, maybe sit. I can't even tell him to go home because the walking back home is going to be really tiring. So he just has to wait.

And, you know, I'm like talking to a friend. And the friend will tell me, oh, you know, we have to pay, like, X amount of money to get some medicine for my grandma. And I would be like, oh, wow, that's really bad. You know what I mean? It sounds like I'm an insensitive person, but it's just basically that we are extremely used to this. It's normal.

If somebody tells you, I couldn't feed my child yesterday, obviously you feel bad for that, but also you're used to it. And if you have a child, you know how difficult it is. So you're basically saying, oh, yeah, no, I know who that is too. like it's we're constantly sharing stories of this which is kind of kind of crazy when I I see sometimes like this um

well not TikToks because we don't have TikTok but the Instagram reels of like American saying things like you know like cut out that friend that is always complaining you have to take care of your own you know like mental health and stuff like that and I'm like that's that's so impossible for us I can cut the person that comes to me venting every day because I would cut every person in my life. And they will probably cut me out too.

We are constantly complaining. It's the only way that we can't let go steam. But yeah, instead of being like this dramatic thing of like, oh, my goodness, it's basically no. It's like an everyday conversation that you have at the bus stop with a stranger, you know? your small talk is basically like I didn't eat yesterday. Yeah, basically, basically. Yeah, basically. The small talk is benting.

But again, you're kind of used to it here. It's, you know, for us, that's normal. So, yeah, I go to sleep like, yeah, I don't have trouble sleeping. Because right now there is a lot of heat in Cuba. is a very hot and humid climate that we have right now. So I at least can put on, you know, my fan and open my windows and sleep. I may have to buy another fan soon because this one is, you know, he has been at least 10 years, but, you know, at least I have one.

Who am I to complain, right? On Monday, Cuba suffered its third nationwide blackout since Jan. January. Protests broke out in the streets of Havana, and the country's energy minister said officials were working to restore power to the island. The darkness has hit Gustavo's home, too. His building is now experiencing blackouts that stretched 12 hours at a time. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. Did he talk about what he had done? Didn't go into detail. He just, I just asked him in person if, well,

what he said was true the night before, and he said it was. During a preliminary hearing for Tyler Robinson, the man charged with killing Charlie Kirk, prosecutors presented evidence showing that Robinson had told his then-romantic partner that he regretted what he'd done. I started crying a little bit and said he wishes he hadn't done it. The prosecutor's evidence included messages that Robinson had sent to his friends confessing to the crime, saying, quote, look at the photos from the surveillance. footage. It was me. Robinson hasn't yet entered a plea, and he could face the death penalty. And on Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security said that the Mexican man that ICE agents had

killed during a traffic stop this week was not the target of their investigation. The agents were actually looking for two people from Guatemala, and they thought that one of them was in the van driven by Lorenzo Salgado Arawo, the man that they shot in Houston on Tuesday. Arouho had lived in the United States without authorization for 35 years. Homeland Security officials said that he tried to use his vehicle as a weapon,

though no video or other evidence has emerged to back up that claim. Today's episode was produced by Lindsay Garrison. It was edited by Michael Benoit, fact-checked by Susan Lee, and contains music by Marion Lazzano, Leah Shaw Damarin, Pat McCusker, Alicia Eitoub, and Diane Wong. Our theme music is by Wonderly. This episode was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Special thanks to Emiliano Rodriguez-Mega and Elda Cantu.

That's it for the daily. I'm Natalie Kittrow. See you on Sunday.