The New York Times
Ted Cruz’s Cancun Journey: Family Texts Detail His Political Blunder
Like millions of his voters in Texas, Senator Ted Cruz had an icy house without electricity this week amid state power. But unlike most, Cruz went out and fled Houston and took a flight with his family to Cancun on Wednesday afternoon for a break at a luxury resort. Photos of Cruz and his wife, Heidi, who were on board the flight, quickly came across social media, surprising both his political allies and opponents during a tropical trip while a disaster occurred at home. The setback only escalated after Cruz, a Republican, issued a statement saying he had flown to Mexico “to be a good father” and accompanied his daughters and their friends; he noted that he was flying back Thursday afternoon, although he did not disclose how long he originally planned to stay. Text messages sent by Heidi Cruz to friends and neighbors in Houston on Wednesday revealed a quickly planned trip. Their home was ‘freezing’, as Heidi Cruz put it – and she suggested a getaway until Sunday. Sign up for The Morning Newsletter of the New York Times Heidi Cruz has invited others to join her at the Ritz-Carlton in Cancún, where they have been “many times” hosted, with this week’s camp price ($ 309 per night ) and its good safety. . The text messages were provided to The New York Times and confirmed by a second person on the thread, who did not want to identify due to the privacy of the text. Ted Cruz’s office declined to comment on where he was more than twelve hours after the departure photos first appeared. Houston police confirmed that the senator’s office had asked for their help with his airport trip on Wednesday, and Cruz was finally spotted in Mexico on Thursday while returning to the state he represents in the Senate. Since the Cruises were gone, millions of Texans were still without electricity, many had no running water and the icy air that penetrated the state was so bad that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was activated to send supplies, including generators. Some in neighborhoods searched for discarded trees to burn for heat. “What’s happening in Texas is unacceptable,” Ted Cruz told a television crew at Cancun airport. He was wearing a Texas state flag mask and a short-sleeved polo shirt in his jeans; the temperature in Cancún was higher than 80 degrees Fahrenheit (26.6 degrees Celsius) on Thursday and in the thirties in Houston. After landing back in the United States, Cruz offered a new statement with a different tone than earlier in the day, when he tried to explain the holiday without remorse and left the impression that it was always a one-day trip for him. would be. He admitted with his reporters after his arrival at home that the trip was ‘apparently a mistake’ and said he started getting a ‘second thought’ as soon as he boarded the plane to Mexico with the aim of getting some days working remotely in the sun. “The plan was to stay with the family through the weekend,” he said. He makes the decision as a parent’s attempt to reassure his two daughters, aged ten and 12, after a ‘difficult week’. “On the one hand, all of us who are the parents have the responsibility to look after our children, to look after our families,” Cruz said. “But I also have a responsibility to take the state of Texas very seriously.” “As it got bigger and bigger firestorm, it became all the more compelling that I had to come back,” he added. Critics of Cruz quickly spread hashtags mocking his journey: #FlyinTed, a play about former President Donald Trump’s ridiculous nickname for Cruz during the 2016 primary race, and among them #FledCruz. Some Democratic groups tried to obtain the episode, and the State Democratic Party renewed its appeal for Cruz’s resignation. “It’s about as numb as any politician can get,” said Gilberto Hinojosa, chairman of the Texas Democratic Party. Hinojosa said he was shocked but not surprised by Cruz’s international journey: “He’s a politician who has never cared much for anyone but himself. Untimely holidays and lavish outbursts have long plunged politicians into scandals and headaches: the international travels that the infamous former lobbyist Jack Abramoff arranged for members of Congress in the early 2000s; Chris Christie, then governor of New Jersey, is sitting on a state beach in 2017 after ordering such beaches to close due to a government disruption; and, more recently, the Gavin Newsom government of California ate without a mask during the pandemic in the high-end restaurant La French last year. Ted Cruz’s decision to leave his state amid an emergency was a particularly burdensome decision for an ambitious politician who has once been elected president and is widely considered a candidate in 2024 or later. “It was clearly a mistake of judgment,” said Ray Sullivan, a Republican strategist in Austin who served as chief of staff to former Gov. Rick Perry. While a senator cannot personally repair the power grid, Sullivan said: “People expect their elected officials to be fully involved during a crisis.” Cruz, 50, won the 2018 re-election of Beto O’Rourke, a former Democratic congressman, by less than 51 percent of the vote. In the race, Cruz aggressively highlighted his efforts during a previous emergency, Hurricane Harvey. He can only run again until 2024. While the city of Houston was seized by the icy weather Wednesday, a Cruz staff member contacted Houston police station at George Intercontinental Airport before his flight to ask for ‘assistance on arrival’. , according to Jodi Silva, spokesperson for the department. Silva said police monitored his movements before leaving. Officers were seen accompanying him on his return from Thursday. In his statement on Thursday, Cruz insisted that he and his staff were “in constant communication” with state and local leaders during his short trip to Cancun. “It’s been a furious week for the Texans,” he said. In his statement, Cruz noted that the private school his daughters visit in Houston was closed this week. But some other parents at the school were upset when they heard about his international trip due to the pandemic and school policies that discouraged such travel abroad. Two parents provided a copy of the written school policy for students not to return to the classrooms seven days after international travel, or to take a COVID test three to five days after their return, which the children of Cruz for next week. . (Separately, an assistant told Cruz he took a virus test before returning on Thursday; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention required a negative outcome.) When Heidi Cruz wrote to the neighbors’ group text chain to try out the extreme conditions endure. early Wednesday, she said the family stayed with friends to stay warm, but quickly insisted on offering an invitation to get away. “Anyone can or want to leave for the week?” she wrote. “Maybe we’m going to Cancun.” She teased a “direct flight” and a hotel capacity. Serious. Heidi Cruz immediately shared information for a Wednesday afternoon departure, a Sunday return trip and a luxury stay at the Ritz-Carlton by the Sea. No one bites, but Heidi Cruz has expanded a more practical offering. “We have a gas stove so we can at least heat little water so we can all help too,” she wrote. The Times shared the contents of the messages with Ted Cruz’s Senate office, but his assistants did not comment. Heidi Cruz did not return a call for comment. Ted Cruz has long named members of both parties as a self-promoter since his arrival on Capitol Hill in 2013. Later that year, he became the leading actor in the drama that forced a government break due to the Affordable Care Act, and in 2016, Sen. . Lindsey Graham, RS.C., famously joked during a speech: “If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate and the trial was in the Senate, no one would convict you.” But if Cruz annoys his colleagues, he just as quickly won the GOP Tea Party wing. He ran as a champion in the party’s presidential primary in 2016 and ended up as the runner-up to Trump, waving his contempt for his colleagues as a tribute. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, a Democrat representing Cruz’s Houston neighborhood in Congress, said Thursday that the state faces a “situation on the deck” and that its leaders are needed to help the federal response to the ground. Fletcher herself was out of power until Wednesday and charged her phone in her car to continue making calls to the House Speaker, FEMA and other agencies – according to her too busy thinking about Cruz’s decision to leave the state to leave at the moment. “Leadership matters,” she said. Cruz was well aware of the possible crisis beforehand. In a radio interview Monday, he said the state could see up to 100 deaths this week. “So do not dare,” he said. “Keep your family safe and just stay home and embrace your children.” Cruz attacked a Democrat, Mayor Stephen Adler of Austin, in December for undertaking a trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, while telling voters to “stay home” during the pandemic. “Hypocrites,” Cruz wrote on Twitter. “Complete and utterly hypocritical.” This article originally appeared in The New York Times. © 2021 The New York Times Company