CNN's Havana-based correspondent Patrick Oppmann sat down with Sandro Castro, grandson of Fidel, Instagram influencer, nightclub owner, and let him hold forth on capitalism, communism, and the family name, all from a generator-powered apartment in an exclusive Havana neighborhood while the rest of the city endured yet another blackout. The network published the interview Monday, and the result reads less like journalism than like a lifestyle segment with a dictator's heir.
The setting alone tells you everything CNN chose not to say out loud. When Oppmann arrived at Castro's apartment in Kohly, one of Havana's most exclusive neighborhoods, as Cuban outlet CiberCuba reported, the capital had been plunged into darkness. Castro's home hummed along on backup generator power. Millions of Cubans have endured rolling blackouts for months. Sandro Castro had electricity.
That gap between the Castro family's comfort and the Cuban people's misery is the real story. CNN treated it as set dressing.
Sandro Castro boasts more than 158,000 Instagram followers. His feed, under the handle sandro_castrox, features self-promotional videos, comedy sketches, and dancing clips. In recent months his content has included videos that look superficially critical of the communist regime, complaints about gasoline shortages and garbage collection in Havana. This month he published a sketch in which a man impersonating President Trump, identified by Cuba-focused outlets as Italian music producer Roberto Ferrante, reached out to Castro to "buy Cuba."
It is the kind of content designed to make a 20-something Castro look edgy without actually threatening anyone in power. And CNN bit hard.
Oppmann asked Castro what his grandfather Fidel would think of him, given that he seemed "more capitalist than communist." Castro offered a gauzy answer:
"He was a person who had his principles like everyone else. But he also respected others' opinions."
That description of Fidel Castro, a man whose regime imprisoned, tortured, and drove into exile hundreds of thousands of Cubans over decades, as someone who "respected others' opinions" went unchallenged in the interview as described. Oppmann did not press back. He moved on.
The most quoted line from the interview will likely be Castro's remark about Cuban economic sentiment. He told Oppmann plainly:
"I think the majority of Cubans want to be capitalist, not communist."
He expanded on the point: "There are many people in Cuba that think in a capitalistic way. There are many people here who want to do capitalism with sovereignty." He said he wanted to "produce his own beer and buy more nightclubs and cars." He owns a Havana nightclub called EFE.
None of this is a revelation to anyone who has watched Cuba's economy crater. The island has endured rolling blackouts and deepening shortages that have pushed ordinary citizens past the breaking point. What is new is a Castro saying it on CNN, and CNN framing it as a fresh, Gen-Z-friendly voice rather than as the privileged grandson of the man most responsible for the system Cubans want to escape.
Castro also offered a mild critique of Cuban figurehead president Miguel Díaz-Canel, telling Oppmann that Díaz-Canel was not doing a good job:
"He isn't doing it because there are so many things he should have done a long time ago, so many things that weren't done properly, and those things are now coming back to haunt us."
That word, "us", is worth pausing on. Sandro Castro has backup power. He has a nightclub. He has an Instagram following. The "us" he inhabits is not the "us" of the Cuban grandmother rationing cooking oil by candlelight.
To his credit, Oppmann did ask one pointed question: "Why do you think some people hate your family so much?" Castro's answer was telling in its evasiveness:
"It's complicated. Because, as I mentioned earlier, many Cubans would have preferred to be more capitalist. I even think that most Cubans want capitalism, not communism, and perhaps that has created a rift and a hatred that, sadly, isn't constructive."
A "rift." A preference that "created hatred." Not a 67-year track record of political repression, imprisonment, confiscation of property, and denial of basic freedoms. In Sandro Castro's telling, Cubans are upset because of an economic policy disagreement, as if the whole thing were a zoning dispute that got out of hand.
Meanwhile, the broader pressure on Havana continues to mount. Díaz-Canel himself has confirmed that talks with the United States are underway as an American oil blockade squeezes the island's already desperate energy supply. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has signaled that Washington views Cuba's communist government as increasingly vulnerable, a message Rubio sharpened after the capture of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro.
Castro claimed in the interview that he supports President Trump's calls for the Cuban regime to reach a deal with the United States and the Cuban economy, "but not his threats." He described himself as "frustrated." After the interview aired, he posted a clip from inside a vehicle saying, "CNN International is getting good."
Sandro Castro told CNN that Cuban state security officials had called him in for questioning over his social media content. He said they let him go because he had never "called for violence or regime change." That last phrase is the quiet part said loud. Actual Cuban dissidents, people who do call for regime change, face prison, beatings, and exile. Castro's brand of criticism stays carefully inside the lines drawn by the security services.
His great-uncle, 94-year-old Raúl Castro, remains the supreme authority in Cuba. The family still sits atop the power structure. Sandro Castro's Instagram-friendly complaints about garbage pickup and gas lines are not dissent. They are a pressure valve, permitted, perhaps even useful, for a regime trying to look slightly less brittle than it is.
The regime's fragility is real. Cuban security agents who had been guarding Maduro were killed and returned to Havana, a stark reminder that the communist alliance network propping up Havana is fraying at every seam.
And yet CNN chose to present Sandro Castro not as a product of that decaying system but as its charming young critic, a Gen-Z face who might just represent the future.
A serious interview with Fidel Castro's grandson could have been worthwhile journalism. There are real questions to ask. How does the Castro family retain its wealth and privilege while ordinary Cubans go hungry? What does Sandro Castro know about the regime's internal politics? Does he acknowledge the political prisoners held by the government his family built?
Instead, CNN gave him a platform to muse about beer production and capitalism "with sovereignty", a phrase that sounds like a marketing slogan, not a political position. Oppmann noted the blackout. He noted the generator. He did not connect the dots for viewers between the Castro family's comfort and the Cuban people's suffering in any way that the interview's framing reflects.
The network has long maintained a bureau in Havana, a privilege the Cuban government can revoke at any time. That arrangement creates incentives that are worth keeping in mind when CNN produces flattering content about the ruling family's youngest public face. Whether those incentives shaped this particular segment is an open question. The result speaks for itself.
President Trump has pushed hard for a new posture toward Cuba, and his administration has signaled it wants a deal, but on American terms, not on terms laundered through a dictator's photogenic grandson.
When the lights go out across Havana and a Castro still has power, literal and political, the last thing the Cuban people need is an American news network treating the family name like a brand refresh. That is not journalism. It is public relations for a dynasty that has earned none of it.
