Like millions of his constituents across Texas, Senator Ted Cruz had a cold house without electricity this week amid the state’s energy crisis. But unlike most, Cruz left, fleeing Houston and taking a flight on Wednesday afternoon to Cancún with his family for a break at a luxury resort.
Photos of Cruz and his wife, Heidi, boarding the flight ricocheted quickly through social media and left their political allies and rivals horrified on a tropical trip while disaster struck at their home. The reaction only intensified after Cruz, a Republican, released a statement saying he had flown to Mexico “to be a good father” and to accompany his daughters and friends; he noted that he would return on Thursday afternoon, although he did not say how long he originally intended to stay.
Text messages sent by Ms. Cruz to friends and neighbors in Houston on Wednesday revealed a hastily planned trip. Their house was “FROZEN”, as Mrs. Cruz – and she proposed an escape until Sunday. Ms. Cruz invited others to join them at the Ritz-Carlton in Cancún, where they had stayed “many times”, noting the price of the room this week ($ 309 a night) and its good security. The text messages were provided to The New York Times and confirmed by a second person on the topic, who declined to be identified due to the private nature of the texts.
For more than 12 hours after the photos of the airport departure appeared, Cruz’s office declined to comment on his whereabouts. Houston police confirmed that the senator’s office had sought his assistance for his trip to the airport on Wednesday and eventually Cruz was seen carrying his suitcase in Mexico on Thursday, while returning to the state he represents in the Senate.
Since the Cruzes were absent, millions of Texans were still without electricity, many lacked running water, and the icy air that swept through the state was so strong that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was activated to send supplies, including generators. Some searched the neighborhoods for fallen trees discarded to burn for warmth.
“What’s happening in Texas is unacceptable,” said Cruz a television crew at Cancún airport. He was wearing a Texas flag mask and a short-sleeved polo shirt tucked into his jeans; the temperature in Cancún was above 80 degrees Fahrenheit in the fifth and thirties in Houston.
Cruz’s critics quickly circulated hashtags mocking his trip: #FlyinTed, a joke with former President Donald J. Trump’s mocking nickname for Mr. Cruz during the 2016 primary race, and #FledCruz, among them. Some Democratic groups sought to raise funds for the episode, and the state Democratic Party renewed its calls for Cruz’s resignation.
“This is as insensitive as any politician can be,” said Gilberto Hinojosa, the president of the Texas Democratic Party. Hinojosa said he was shocked, but not surprised by Cruz’s international tour: “He is a politician who never really cared much for anyone but himself.”
If Cruz intended to leave the impression that he intended to stay just one day, his large suitcase and the group text messages that Cruz had sent planning a longer itinerary suggested that he had shortened the trip. NBC reported separately that Mr. Cruz had retraced his return ticket on Thursday morning.
“With classes canceled during the week, our girls asked to take a trip with friends,” Cruz said of his daughters, who are 10 and 12, in his testimony on Thursday. “Wanting to be a good father, I flew with them last night and I’m flying back this afternoon.”
Inopportune vacations and opulent ostentations have long ensnared politicians in public relations scandals and headaches: international travels organized by disgraced ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff in the early 2000s for members of Congress; Chris Christie, then governor of New Jersey, sitting on a state beach in 2017, after ordering the closure of these beaches because of a government shutdown; and, most recently, California Governor Gavin Newsom dining without a mask during last year’s pandemic at the sophisticated French Laundry restaurant.
Cruz’s decision to leave his state in the middle of an emergency was especially confusing for an ambitious politician who once ran for president and is widely regarded as wishing to run again in 2024 or later.
“It was clearly an error of judgment,” said Ray Sullivan, an Austin-based Republican strategist who served as chief of staff to former governor Rick Perry. Although a senator cannot personally restore the power grid, said Sullivan, “people expect their elected officials to be fully engaged during a crisis.”
Cruz, 50, narrowly won reelection in 2018 against Beto O’Rourke, a former Democratic deputy, with less than 51% of the vote. In that race, Mr. Cruz aggressively highlighted his efforts during a previous emergency, Hurricane Harvey. He cannot be re-elected until 2024.
While the city of Houston was dominated by the cold on Wednesday, a Cruz team member contacted Houston Police Department personnel at George Bush Intercontinental Airport prior to his flight requesting “assistance on arrival,” according to Jodi Silva , a spokesman for the department.
Ms. Silva said the police “monitored her movements” before her departure. Officers were seen accompanying him on his return on Thursday.
Mr. Cruz insisted on his statement on Thursday that he and his team were “in constant communication” with state and local leaders during his brief trip to Cancún.
“This has been an irritating week for Texans,” he said.
In his statement, Mr. Cruz noted that the private school his daughters attend in Houston was closed this week. But some other parents at the school were furious when they heard of their international trip because of the pandemic and school policies that discouraged their trip abroad.
Two parents provided a copy of the written school policy for students not to return to classrooms for seven days after the international trip, or to take a Covid test three to five days after returning, which would keep Cruz children out of school for the week Following . (Separately, an adviser to Mr. Cruz said that he had tested for viruses before his flight back on Thursday; the Center for Disease Control and Prevention requires a negative result.)
When Cruz wrote to the text chain of the group of neighbors who were trying to resist extreme conditions on Wednesday morning, she said the family was staying with friends to keep warm, but quickly decided to offer an invitation to leave.
“Can anyone or wants to go out during the week?” she wrote. “We can go to Cancún.” It triggered a “direct flight” and “hotel capacity. Seriously. “Ms. Cruz promptly shared details for a departure on Wednesday afternoon, a return trip on Sunday and a luxurious stay at the Ritz-Carlton by the sea in the meantime.
No one seemed to bite, but Mrs. Cruz extended a more practical offer. “We have a gas stove so that we can at least heat up little water, which will be happy to help anyone we can,” she wrote.
The Times shared the content of the messages with Cruz’s Senate cabinet, but his advisers did not comment. Ms. Cruz did not return a call for comment.
Mr. Cruz has long irritated members of both parties as a self-promoter, since his arrival at the Capitol in 2013. Later that year, he became the main actor in the drama that forced the government to shut down due to the Affordable Care Act, and in 2016, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, made the famous joke during a speech: “If you killed Ted Cruz on the Senate floor and the trial was in the Senate, no one would condemn you.”
But if Cruz angered his colleagues, he quickly won the Republican Party’s Tea Party wing. He ran as an anti-establishment champion in the party’s 2016 presidential primaries and ended up as runner-up to Trump, brandishing his colleagues’ disdain as a medal of honor.
Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher, a Democrat who represents Cruz’s Houston neighborhood in Congress, said on Thursday that the state was facing a “general situation” and that its leaders were needed to help organize the federal response on the ground.
Mrs. Fletcher was out of power until Wednesday and loaded her phone in her car to continue making calls to the Mayor, FEMA and other agencies – too busy, she said, to think about Cruz’s “decision leave the state at that time. “
“Leadership is important,” she said.
Mr. Cruz was well aware of the possible crisis in advance. In a radio interview on Monday, he said the state could see up to 100 deaths this week. “So don’t take any chances,” he said. “Keep your family safe and just stay home and hug your kids.”
Cruz attacked a Democrat, Mayor Stephen Adler of Austin, in December, for taking a trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, while telling constituents to “stay home” during the pandemic.
“Hypocrites,” wrote Cruz on Twitter. “Complete and absolute hypocrites.”