As we’ve often said here, the Elitist Media Evening News is a consistent anti-news outfit. Time is often stuffed with fluff so as to avoid coverage of important stories. A rare exception, though, on NBC Nightly News, which was the only network newscast to report on the heated exchange between the United States and Cuba at the United Nations General Assembly.
Watch the report in its entirety, as aired on NBC Nightly News on Tuesday, October 26th, 2026:
WATCH: @NBCNightlyNews are the sole network newscast to carry the US-Cuba blowup at the UN pic.twitter.com/Iq38MvDLAK
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) October 28, 2026
TOM LLAMAS: We're following a shocking showdown at the United Nations with the U.S. and Cuba's top diplomats in a shouting match on the world stage, all caught on camera. Here's Emilie Ikeda.
EMILIE IKEDA: Tonight, a fiery turn on the floor of the United Nations General Assembly.
MIKE WALTZ: Back up, Ambassador. Back away! This isn't Havana.
IKEDA: Marking the latest spat between Cuba and Washington amid the US’s punishing economic campaign against the island nation.
WALTZ: What's on his wrist? Two Rolexes worth $40,000 in today's money.
IKEDA: As the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Mike Waltz was speaking and detailing alleged corruption by the Cuban government, you can see Cuba's foreign minister and delegation advance toward the podium.
WALTZ: This individual needs to back away from this podium. He's not going to intimidate me. In the United States of America (CROSSTALK) to political prisoners.
IKEDA: The exchange quickly intensifying.
BRUNO RODRIGUEZ: You’re a liar!
IKEDA: Waltz repeatedly telling the foreign minister to back up.
WALTZ: Do you understand who you're dealing with? This is America. Back up. The rule is clear.
IKEDA: Amid the shocking shouting match, the U.N. General Assembly president even called to suspend the meeting.
RICHARD TUR DE LA CONCEPCION: He's violating my personal space.
IKEDA: Waltz later sharing this video of what he says is a Cuban diplomat trying to cut their microphones during the chaotic day. The Cuban foreign minister said Waltz lied in a “crude and conceited way”. We reached out to the embassy for further comment, with the vote on the economic embargo against Cuba set for tomorrow. Emilie Ikeda, NBC News.
Credit to NBC for showing this story, just like they were the only ones to report on María Corina Machado’s triumphant return to Venezuela after 10 months in exile. When discussing this with our own Tim Graham, I mentioned half-jokingly that these stories run on the Nightly News and nowhere else because the anchor/managing editor has to be able to show his face in Miami. Regardless, it is refreshing.
For once, we don’t get a foreign policy news story that is Trumpwashed, as we are seeing even now in the aftermath of the highly controversial Brazilian presidential election. The report is kinda clean and has a little bit of editorializing (“alleged corruption” by the Castrite dictatorship is laughable). Nonetheless, we get a near-straightforward narration of the exchanges between the delegations ahead of a meaningless U.N. vote on an embargo that is already codified into U.S. law.
Watching the media allow the communists to be depicted naturally, thus revealing them as the bad guys, is something we don’t see enough of on the evening news.
