In 2025, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass' alleged ties to Cuba, communism and former Cuban leader Fidel Castro came under scrutiny on social media.

One X user shared the following post (archived) on Jan. 8, 2025:

In a video accompanying the viral X post, the narrator said, in part:

Back in the 1970s, community activist Karen Bass went on at least 15 trips to Cuba — many with a group known as the Venceremos Brigade, a Marxist group started by the Castro regime to subvert American interests, weaken Democracies and spread communism around the world.

Similar claims about Bass circulated elsewhere on X (archived) and Facebook (archived) in June 2025 amid protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions in LA. The Facebook post claimed Bass "previously praised" former Cuban leader Fidel Castro and referred to her as a "card carrying communist." Snopes readers also searched our website for information related to the claims.

Snopes reached out to Bass' office for comment about her relationship to communism and trips to Cuba and will update this story if we receive a response.

Here's what we know about Bass' trips to Cuba, her involvement in the Venceremos Brigade and her past comments on Castro:

Bass visited Cuba multiple times

Bass has visited Cuba multiple times throughout her life. In 1973, when Bass was 19, she made her first trip to the country with a group called the Venceremos Brigade, The Atlantic reported in July 2020.

The Venceremos Brigade began as a joint venture between the Castro government and Students for a Democratic Society, an American organization known for its anti-war activism, according to The Atlantic. SDS grew "increasingly militant" over time and eventually split into several factions — one of the most notorious being the Weather Underground, which used terrorist tactics, per Britannica's page on the group.

In her interview with The Atlantic, Bass recalled building houses in Cuba and seeing Castro speak in Revolution Square, calling him "extremely charismatic." But according to The Atlantic's article, Bass said "she was aware that Cuba under Castro wasn't the utopia that some of her friends believed it to be."

The article quoted Bass as saying, in part: "I didn't have any illusions that the people in Cuba had the same freedoms I did. I came home and was protesting everything; I knew that the Cuban people didn't have the ability to do that."

Bass later returned to Cuba without the Venceremos Brigade, visiting the country eight times in the 1970s and going back about as many times since then, The Atlantic reported.

In the early 1980s, Bass, a community activist with a focus on protesting police brutality, became a target of the Los Angeles government because of her connections with the Venceremos Brigade. Former Los Angeles police Chief Daryl F. Gates, who faced an ACLU lawsuit over allegations the department spied on citizens, launched a counterattack against Bass and other plaintiffs in 1983, the Los Angeles Times reported in 2020.

A document the LA Times acquired in 1983 characterized Bass as a Venceremos Brigade leader who "returned from Cuba to the U.S.A. bringing back propaganda literature."

At the time, Bass said in response, "I'm angry and I'm shocked that they would use [this allegation] to try to attempt to smear me personally and the brigade." She described the Venceremos Brigade as an "educational project" that provided members with the opportunity to "gain closer knowledge of the Cuban people and Cuban society" by helping them with construction projects, the LA Times reported in 1983.

Bass also made at least three trips to Cuba while a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

In 2011, she traveled to Havana as part of a trip sponsored by The Center for Democracy in the Americas, a document shared by LegiStorm, a database of information about members of Congress, showed.

In 2015, Bass and other members of Congress accompanied then-Secretary of State John Kerry on a trip to Cuba during which Kerry presided over raising the U.S. flag over the embassy in Havana.

Bass and other lawmakers also joined the-President Barack Obama on a trip to Cuba in 2016, the first presidential visit to Cuba in 88 years, Politico reported at the time. On March 24, 2016, Bass shared the following message on Twitter:

#ThrowbackThursday to my first visit to #Cuba in 1973. Never imagined I would one day return with @POTUS! pic.twitter.com/YbkulKMny3

— Congressmember Bass (@RepKarenBass) March 24, 2016

What Bass said when Fidel Castro died

Bass faced scrutiny over a statement she released when Castro died in November 2016. She wrote:

As Cuba begins nine days of mourning, I wish to express my condolences to the Cuban people and the family of Fidel Castro. The passing of the Comandante en Jefe is a great loss to the people of Cuba. I hope together, our two nations will continue on the new path of support and collaboration with one another, and continue in the new direction of diplomacy. 

Bass later distanced herself from those comments. She said her use of the phrase "comandante en jefe," which Castro's government often used to praise him, was a poor attempt to translate "commander in chief," The Atlantic reported.

"If I had to make that statement over again, I wouldn't use those words," she told The Atlantic.

During an appearance on NBC News' "Meet the Press" in August 2020, Bass addressed her remarks in greater detail. When asked whether she thought her previous views on Castro were naive, Bass responded (emphasis ours):

Oh, I think as any 19 year old would be, sure. In my early 20s, I went to Cuba to help the Cuban people, to build houses. But over the last 20 years, Chuck, I have been working — one, I've always believed in bridging the divide between our two countries. Cuba's 90 miles away. But for the last 20 years, I've actually been working on health care related issues in Cuba. You know, the Cubans train U.S. doctors. And I've been recruiting those doctors to work in the inner city because they come in tuition free. The Cubans also have two medicines, one for diabetes, of which my mother died for, lung cancer, which my father died for, and I would like to have those drugs tested in the United States. Now, that doesn't excuse the fact that I know the Castro regime has been a brutal regime to its people. I know that there is not freedom of press, freedom of association. And interestingly, when I went in my late teens and early 20s, you know, one of the things that — one of the reasons was to build relations with the Americans that were there, because there were over 100 young people that were there. And all of us worked on different issues. Well, what's interesting is that we had the ability to come home and protest against our own government. But the Cuban people most certainly cannot do that. They couldn't do it then and they can't do it now.

The interview continued as follows:

CHUCK TODD: But Congresswoman, I have to say, you sound a lot tougher on Castro now than you did when you described him as "comandante en jefe" when he died. And then you said something that I found interesting. You said you didn't quite realize how sensitive folks were in South Florida about this still. […] And so I'm just curious, sort of, that you thought, well, Californians wouldn't mind that description, but it might offend Floridians. Forget that a minute. It still seemed as if you had a soft view of Castro, if you will.

KAREN BASS: Yeah. And let me explain too because I think the use of the term "comandante en jefe" what I meant by that is is that clearly, in Florida that is a term that is endearing to him. I didn't see it that way. I was expressing condolences to the Cuban people, to the people in Cuba, not Cubans around the world. I don't think that is a toxic expression in California. But let me just say, Chuck, lesson learned. Wouldn't do that again. Talked immediately to my colleagues from Florida and realized that that was something that just shouldn't have been said.

TODD: But it's not — you said you were expressing condolences to the Cuban people. There's many people who believe that the Castro regime in general was keeping them confined, was stifling their freedom. That actually, getting rid of Castro might've been a celebration to some.

BASS: Yeah, maybe. And in the island, I think it's slightly different because, you know, they certainly didn't have the freedom and wouldn't have the freedom to celebrate that. So I think that it is just very important, the way the Obama administration had opened up relations with Cuba, I think the best way to bring about change on the island is for us to have closer relations with a country that is 90 miles away.

That same month, Bass told NBC News, "I'm not a socialist. I'm not a communist. I've belonged to one party my entire life and that's the Democratic Party and I'm a Christian."