Whataboutism at its finest.
Sen. Ted Cruz confirms he flew to Mexico as Texas grapples with power outages caused by severe weather
By
Felicia Sonmez,
John Wagner and
William Wan
Feb. 18, 2021 at 1:34 p.m. EST
Sen. Ted Cruz confirmed Thursday that he traveled to Cancun, Mexico, as millions of Texas residents were without power amid blackouts from the freezing weather.
In a statement, the Texas Republican said he flew with his daughters Wednesday and would be returning Thursday amid an uproar and calls to resign over the family trip.
“With school canceled for the week, our girls asked to take a trip with friends. Wanting to be a good dad, I flew down with them last night and am flying back this afternoon,” Cruz said.
Photos that rapidly circulated on social media overnight showed a man who could be the senator at an airport and on an airplane. In some photos, a gray face mask was visible that appeared to be similar to one that Cruz was wearing at President Biden’s inauguration.
According to the social media postings, Cruz appeared to be in the Houston airport, preparing to board a United Airlines flight from Houston to Fort Lauderdale with continuing service to Cancun.
In Texas, more than 3 million customers were still in the dark Wednesday afternoon, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks outages nationwide. As of Thursday morning, that figure was about 500,000.
The Texas Democratic Party called on Cruz to resign over the incident. In a statement, party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said Cruz “is proving to be an enemy to our state by abandoning us in our greatest time of need.”
“Ted Cruz jetting off to Mexico while Texans remain dying in the cold isn’t surprising but it is deeply disturbing and disappointing,” Hinojosa said. “Cruz is emblematic of what the Texas Republican Party and its leaders have become: weak, corrupt, inept, and self-serving politicians who don’t give a damn about the people they were elected to represent. They were elected by the people but have no interest or intent of doing their jobs.”
A Democratic super PAC, American Bridge, also called for Cruz’s resignation.
“Senator Cruz should do his constituents a favor and stay on the beach instead of getting paid by taxpayers to do a job he clearly has no interest in doing,” the group’s president, Bradley Beychok, said in a statement.
Cruz was first elected to the Senate in 2012, narrowly beat former congressman Beto O’Rourke (D) to win reelection in 2018 and is widely considered a potential 2024 presidential candidate. He ran unsuccessfully for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016 and, after being among Donald Trump’s sharpest critics during the primaries, went on to become one of his staunchest defenders in Congress, helping to spearhead efforts to challenge Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.
While outrage at Cruz was mounting online, his former opponent, O’Rourke, highlighted his own efforts to assist Texans during the crisis.
“We made over 151,000 calls to senior citizens in Texas tonight,” O’Rourke said in a Wednesday night tweet. “One of our [volunteers] talked to a man stranded at home w/out power in Killeen, hadn’t eaten in 2 days, got him a ride to a warming center and a hot meal. Help us reach more people, join us tomorrow.”
In an interview Monday with San Antonio-based radio host Joe “Pags” Pagliarulo, Cruz said he was fortunate not to have lost power at his Houston home. He urged his fellow Texans to stay home because of the danger posed by the storms.
“This storm is dangerous, and there’s a second storm expected to hit this week, which will make things even worse,” he said. “So if you can stay home, don’t go out on the roads. Don’t risk the ice.”
Cruz added that he had spoken over the weekend with a meteorologist who said the combination of storms could lead up to 100 people in the state losing their lives this week alone.
“So don’t risk it,” Cruz said. “Keep your family safe, and just stay home and hug your kids.”
Cruz has also previously criticized Austin Mayor Steve Adler (D), who in November hosted a wedding and then traveled to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, as coronavirus cases surged across Texas.
“Hypocrites. Complete and utter hypocrites,” Cruz said in a December tweet, referring to Adler and other Democrats who had flouted guidelines on travel and large group gatherings amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rates the risk of covid-19 in Mexico at level 4 — the agency’s highest level of warning — and says on its website: “Travelers should avoid all travel to Mexico.”
If people must travel for work or family reasons, CDC officials say passengers to Mexico should get tested one to three days before and wear a mask at all times during their trip.
New rules put in place by the Biden administration require all passengers on planes returning to the United States to have a negative coronavirus test result before boarding their flight.
According to CDC guidelines, once Cruz returns, he should stay home for seven days to quarantine, and get tested three to five days after traveling. If he chooses not to get tested, he should stay in quarantine for 10 days to avoid possibly infecting others.
Cruz is just the latest in a series of public officials apparently caught breaking rules and vacationing in ways they shouldn’t during the pandemic.
During Thanksgiving, Deborah Birx, coronavirus response coordinator for the Trump White House, told Americans to “be vigilant” and pleaded with them to limit celebrations to “your immediate household.” But the day after Thanksgiving, Birx traveled to a vacation home in Delaware along with three generations of her family from two households, the Associated Press reported.
That same week, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock (D) tweeted out advisories asking constituents to “stay home as much as you can,” “avoid travel” and “host virtual gatherings instead of in-person dinners.” Half an hour later, Hancock got on a plane to visit family in Mississippi.
“It was unwise, it was hypocritical, it was a mistake that I deeply regret and deeply apologize for,” Hancock told local news outlets.
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