Ted Cruz’s first excuse for his trip to Mexico during his state’s disastrous freeze was not perfect: The Texas Senator said he was trying to be a “good dad” by accompanying his daughters for the flight south while the power was out, with a plan to return the next day. Aside from effectively blaming his children for his callous miscalculation, Cruz was not forthcoming about the original length of his trip — a ticket showed that he intended to return on the weekend — or the group involved. Do family visits to the Cancún Ritz-Carlton often include dad’s college roommate?
As Texans deal with the fallout from the collapse of the state’s power grid, Cruz continues to squirm away from full accountability for his astoundingly dumb decision. While Cruz admitted last week that the trip was a “mistake,” on Monday he attempted to shift the blame to his accusers in an appearance on Hannity. In addition to repeating the bogus claim that the Green New Deal was a “major” reason for the power failure, Cruz diagnosed the media’s case of “Trump withdrawal” as a reason for his bad PR. “They’ve attacked Trump every day for four years, they don’t know what to do. So they obsess over my taking my girls to the beach.”
This defense, too, is far from perfect. Though the former president’s behavior has him exiled from social media, it’s not like there’s been a vacuum of Trump stories: Major news about Trump continues to develop as he remains an extremely popular figure among Republican voters. Cruz, who was already just barely above water in polling in the wake of the Capitol riot, also underestimates how obvious his scandal is for a nation consistently frustrated by stories of frivolous, hypocritical behavior from its politicians. With Trump in the White House last year, Democrats including California Governor Newsom and San Francisco mayor London Breed were excoriated for violating their own pandemic recommendations on dining. A notably unpopular senator flying to a beach in Mexico as millions in his state went without power amid freezing temperatures is about as obvious as it gets.
Closer to home, Cruz is also finding another target to blame — his neighbors, some of whom sent details from a group chat revealing the Cruz’s family trip was planned by mom and dad. As a guest on the podcast Ruthless on Tuesday, Cruz said that his wife, Heidi, was “pretty pissed” that someone had snitched on them after the vacation became national news. In the interview with a conservative press outlet, he also suggested that his Democratic neighbors should have a “modicum of respect” and not be “assholes” by speaking to the press. The lesson to avoid “do as I say, not as I do” politics does not appear to have been learned.
