AOC raises $ 2 million for Texans, visiting Houston while Ted Cruz embroiled in fury over Cancun trip

Updated at 15:48 with statement from Texas Republican Party President Allen West.

The rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from New York is heading to Texas after raising more than $ 2 million in aid to Texans who were left without power, water and supplies after a devastating winter storm, while Texas Senator Ted Cruz remains destroyed by its hour-long trip to Cancún.

Ocasio-Cortez announced the fundraiser to help Texans homeless and food on Thursday afternoon. By midday on Friday, fundraising had already raised $ 2 million.

“Let’s see how far we can go,” said Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter.

“Charity is not a substitute for good governance, but we will not fail to help people in need when things get to the fan,” said Ocasio-Cortez in a tweet. “People understand that now is the time for collective action and to do what we can with everything we have.”

She will join Rep. Sylvia Garcia, a Houston Democrat on Friday, to distribute supplies.

“Thank you and welcome,” Garcia told Ocasio-Cortez in a tweet.

Ocasio-Cortez is going to Houston about 24 hours after the junior senator from Texas. Cruz was criticized for leaving Texas on a flight to Cancún on Wednesday, while families across the state remained without power, food and water.

Cruz said the trip was “obviously a mistake” in an interview with the Daily Caller.

“While I was going there, I started to have doubts almost immediately because the crisis here in Texas, you need to be here on the floor,” Cruz said in an interview with Fox News. “… I came back this afternoon and I’m here working to make sure, do everything we can to turn on the power.”

Cruz’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Texas Republican Party President Allen West said the “Ocasio-Cortez gesture is appreciated” in a tweet, but blamed the New York Democrats’ New Deal Green philosophy for the crisis, saying wind and solar power failed in the Texans. However, frozen wind turbines are not the reason for power failures.

“Texans are grateful for your help, but they don’t want to be part of a political party photo opportunity. If you really cared, you would have sent the check anonymously, rather than writing about you, ”said West in a tweet. “The next time you come to Texas, bring us $ 19 billion that we have wasted on wind energy.”

Beto O’Rourke, Cruz’s 2018 Democratic Senate candidate, criticized the MSNBC senator for “vacationing in Cancún now, when people are literally freezing to death in the state he was elected to represent and serve”.

O’Rourke has been organizing resources for Texans in crisis and calling elderly people who may have been affected by power cuts or water shortages.

Country and Texas singer Kacey Musgraves is selling “Cruzin ‘for a bruzin'” T-shirts mocking the Texas senator. All profits will go to the Texans affected by the storms.

“Texas is cold, I can be cold,” said the singer in a tweet.

The Texas Democratic Party called for Cruz’s resignation on Thursday in response to Cruz’s trip.

“Tell me again who did for more Texas? @AOC or any of our useless Republican leaders who pushed this state to the brink of extinction, ”the party tweeted.