Uproar for Cruz after Cancun trip amid deep freeze
On Monday, Sen. Ted Cruz urged his constituents to “stay home,” warning that winter weather beating down on Texas could be deadly. On Tuesday, he offered a shrug emoji and pronounced the situation “not good.” Then, Wednesday, he decamped for a RitzCarlton resort in sundrenched Cancun, Mexico, escaping with his family from their freezing house.
And on Thursday, many Americans who had been battered by a deadly winter storm, on top of a nearly yearlong pandemic, finally found a reason to come together and lift their voices in a united chorus of rage.
FlyinTed, an homage to Donald Trump’s “Lyin’ Ted” nickname, began trending on Twitter. TMZ, the celebrity website, published photographs showing a Patagonia-fleece-clad Cruz waiting for his flight, hanging out in the United Club lounge and reading his phone from a seat in economy plus. The Texas Monthly, which bills itself as “the national magazine of Texas,” offered a list of curses to mutter against Cruz.
For a politician long reviled not just by Democrats but also by many of his Republican colleagues in Washington, Cruz is now the landslide winner for the title of the least sympathetic politician in America. After leaving freezing Texans to melt snow for water while he traveled to go work at the beach, Cruz offered little more than the classic political cliche — time with family — as an explanation, citing his daughters’ desire to go to Cancun as the reason for his trip. Even his dog became a player in the drama after a report that the Cruz family had left the aptly named Snowflake behind with a security guard, stirring fresh outrage on social media.
“It’s like he bailed out on the state at its most weakened moment. It’s an indefensible action,” said Bill Miller, a veteran Texas lobbyist. The trip was a surprisingly tonedeaf misstep for a politician known to have big ambitions. Cruz, who ran for president in 2016, is widely viewed as wanting to mount a second bid.