Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., who was “robbed of his childhood” by communism, took the podium at the House Republican leadership press conference on Wednesday to warn Americans about the lies sold by self-proclaimed Marxist, communist, and socialist candidates.

“When people who have lived under communism warn us about what is happening, we actually should listen because they’ve been there,” Republican Study Committee Chairwoman Lisa McClain, R- Mich., said at the press conference before introducing Gimenez.

“Communism is not some rational theory dreamed up in a college classroom. It’s already been tried, and we already know the outcome. 
Where does communism lead to? It leads to breadlines of the Soviet Union. Political prisons in Cuba and starving children in Venezuela.”

Gimenez, who escaped Cuba’s communist regime with his family at the age of 6, then took the stage to share his experience with the horrors of communism, adding that confused Americans are headed in the same direction without even knowing it.

“[New York City Mayor Zohran] Mamdani reminds me of a young Fidel,” Gimenez said. “The smile, don’t let the smile fool you.”

“The promise that a free life is to come and then you’re gonna have a free and open democracy is false,” Gimenez continued, speaking about the Democratic Socialist of America platform, which advocates for a new style of government. “When you look at the democratic socialist agenda, it says that they want to eliminate the Senate, they want to eliminate the presidency. They want to stack the court. 


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“Now, why would they want to do that?” Gimenez continued, to “create one body.”

The congressman, who reached the shores of the United States with nothing more than $10 and a watch, which he still owns, went on to mention that if Marxism really were as great as the new wave of American progressives paint it to be, the risk of escaping communist regimes would not be as high.

“Thousands of people have died in the Straits of Florida seeking freedom,” Gimenez said. “If communism was so great, why would they risk their lives and get on makeshift rafts to try to make it to Florida?”

“Why? Because communism robs you of everything,” he answered. “It robs you of your opportunity,
It robs you of your life. It’s misery.”

“Communists are correct in one thing,” the congressman added.
”Everybody’s the same. Everybody is equally miserable. That’s the only thing that they give you.”

After listening to Gimenez’s remarks, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., added that, based on testimonies such as his colleague’s, it is clear that “people who believe in this ideology are one of two things: either idiots or evil.”

Why It Matters

Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier, who are now the Democratic Party nominees for New York’s Congressional Districts 7 and 13, are possibly months away from being part of the new wave of self-proclaimed Marxists to reach Congress.

Johnson added during the press conference that we are now “fighting communist in our own shores and radicals abroad.”

The electoral victories of these Marxists follow those of other self-proclaimed socialist and Islamist apologists, Mamdani in New York City and Katie Wilson in Seattle, Washington, who rose to power in their respective cities in 2025.

Chevalier founded a group that called for the “total eradication of Western civilization.”

And on Oct. 8, 2023, one day after Hamas militants invaded Israel, killing approximately 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, she attended an anti-Israel rally that displayed signs declaring “Resistance is Justified when People are Occupied.”

Similarly, Valdez has referenced calls to “free Palestine” and “abolish [Immigration and Customs Enforcement],” and is campaigning to “win Medicare for all, housing for all, and unions for all.” She also looks to grant citizenship and voting rights to illegal immigrants and supports using taxpayer funds to pay for transgender procedures.

During his remarks at the RNC, Gimenez argued that this is the same type of rhetoric seen in Cuba. The congressman cited the failed healthcare system, the selective yet faulty education system, the government-enforced police state to crack down on those who disagree, the lack of administrative care, state-sponsored indoctrination, and a power-hungry oligarchy.

Gimenez concluded by adding how communists sell voters a false promise pushed by social issues in order to receive enough votes so that they can rise to power.

“Health care is free in Cuba,” Gimenez said. “You can’t get any, but it’s free. The hospitals are a mess. 
There’s no medicine. The doctors, if you want to get an appointment, it will take you months to get an appointment.”

“You get what you pay for, and it’s not much,” the representative continued.