State Department Targets Hasan Piker, Ilhan Omar's Daughter, and DSA

By Hafiz Rashid. Published July 20, 2026.

The State Department is trying to smear left-wing organizations and activists as "front groups and fellow travelers" for the Cuban government.

In a report published Monday titled "Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism," the State Department singled out political commentator-streamer Hasan Piker, Amazon union leader Christian Smalls, the Democratic Socialists of America, and environmental activist Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Representative Ilhan Omar, for allegedly supporting the Cuban government.

"This constant stream of Western left-wing activists, influencers and organizers is coordinated by a network of Cuba-backed nonprofits, foundations, academic and cultural partnerships, and even dedicated U.S.-based travel agencies," the report said, mentioning the activists' visits to the island.

The report also asserts that the DSA, an organization claiming over 120,000 members, "maintains a fierce, almost religious commitment to the cause of the Cuban regime—not because the group is controlled by Cuban agents, per se, but because that commitment is now simply the de facto policy orthodoxy on the American far left."

It seems to be part of the administration's attack on "far-left political terrorism," coupled with an attempt to engineer regime change in Cuba, both led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Under his watch, the U.S. government has taken the decades-long economic embargo against Cuba and escalated it into a de facto oil blockade that has crippled much of the country.

Rubio has refused to answer questions about whether the U.S. plans to invade Cuba or to elaborate on long-term plans for the island. In January, the U.S. military abducted and arrested Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in an overseas raid and brought him to the U.S. to face trial. Is Cuba headed toward a similar fate? And will the White House brand its left-wing opponents in the U.S. as terrorists who support Cuba?