As Texas faced flash floods, “Flyin’ Ted” Cruz was vacationing in Greece, a reminder of what happened in 2021 when Cruz flew to Cancun as Texas faced devastating winter storms. But attacking him for this seems quite unreasonable, especially when he cut his vacation short to fly home when the devestation became clear.
Ted Cruz Faces Backlash For Greece Vacation During Texas Floods
Even as search and rescue efforts continue, over 100 people have tragically died in Kerr County, Texas due to flash flooding of the Guadalupe River, which rose more than 26 feet in just 45 minutes. Vicims include dozens of girls from a youth camp who found themselves unable to escape to high ground.
About a day after the Guadalupe River surge began, Cruz was pictured visiting the Parthenon in Athens with his wife, Heidi. One witness allegedly confronted him, saying, “20 kids dead in Texas and you take a vacation?”
“He sort of grunted and walked on. His wife shot me a dirty look. Then they continued on with their tour guide.”
What a convenient story…
On Sunday, Cruz cut his vacation short and flew back to Texas. During a press conference yesterday, he found himself on the defensive again:
“In the first few hours of this flood, I was on the phone with Governor Abbott, was on the phone with Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, I was on the phone with Nim Kidd, the head of the Texas Department of Emergency Management, and then I called President Trump.
“He was having dinner at the time, it was still early in what was transpiring, and I wanted him to know. I said, Mr. President, from everything we’re hearing right now, this appears to be bad, really bad.
“There may be a very significant loss of life unfolding right now in Texas… The president said, ‘Ted… whatever assets you need, whatever resources you need, yes, let us know, and we will provide everything.’
“Within hours, we had over a dozen helicopters in the air, National Guard, DPS, game wardens, Coast Guard, doing search and rescue.”
Cruz insists that his swift communication with Texas officials and President Trump saved lives and helped far more Texans than his personal presence would have.
And here, I think he’s right…
Cruz also claimed his own daughter was only five miles from Camp Mystic…scary, indeed.
Unfair Criticism Of Cruz
I find the criticism against Cruz misplaced. The Texas floods are such a tragedy because they were not predicted…and Cruz was on an airplane to Greece before the storms hit. He cut his trip short to return, showing leadership.
All of this is an issue because in 2021, Cruz fled horrible storms in Texas to fly to Cancun with his family. While hundreds of Texans died and millions were without power, Cruz flew United Airlines to Mexico.
> Read More: Ted Cruz Flees To Mexico On United Airlines. Wouldn’t You?
But while I understood the outrage machine in 2021, I simply cannot buy into it here precisely because flash floods are flash (a rapid and extreme overflow of water)…they are often not predicted and certainly the flooding of the Guadalupe River was not predicted in the way it occurred.
Why did he wait to Sunday to fly home instead of Saturday? His press office claimed that it was the first available flight, but knowing Cruz is loyal to United and also how United clears upgrades, my hunch is that Sunday was the first day he could get home in business class.
CONCLUSION
Ted Cruz is under attack for vacationing in Greece during a natural disaster in Texas, but I find this particular line of attack against Cruz to be misplaced.
If you want to attack Cruz, attack him for supporteing a horrific spending that adds trilliions of dollars to our nationail debt, burdening my children with crippling debt as the dollar tanks in value. But don’t attack him for being in Greece when the unexpected storm hit.
I’m curious what my Texas readers think about this issue.
image: Ted Cruz/ X // Hat Tip: View From The Wing
Matthew,
the main issue with the One Big Beautiful Bill is the CBO is counting the extension of current tax rates as a tax cut. It also refuses to include the revenue raised by tariffs (which should have been codified in this bill, BTW).
The 3.3T number is some of the worst Washington Math I have ever seen. If scored properly, it would have been showed to significantly cut the deficit (but of course, not by enough)
Now, should the cuts have gone further? of course! I’d love to see Medicare and Social Security FROZEN at 2025 levels for 5 years, and freeze defense spending at current levels for the same time period
I’m not buying it. Tax cuts are great…if we can afford them. Instead, we just straddle my children with debt. It will reach a point at which debt servicing could become unbearable…Healthcare is a total mess in the USA, but cutting off millions from healthcare does not strike me as sound public policy. Healthcare is not a nice thing to have, but a necessity…our system is so broken and this BBB makes it even worse.
But we literally just HAD a TAX INCREASE
Tariffs are a tax
Did we need a second tax increase?
And if you do not want to cut health care, you aren’t really in favor of balancing the budget or paying off the debt. It is the mandatory spending that is driving deficits
Tariffs are criminally negligent economic tools.
Tariffs are a tax to raise revenue
They also did not cause inflation during the first term and have yet to cause inflation this term
Maybe Keynesian economic theory is what is wrong?
@Derek: they haven’t caused inflation because trump keeps pausing most of them, and buyers are crafty enough to get around the rest of them. If he ever fully institutes them, then you will see inflation
It wouldn’t have been a second tax increase. The 2017 cuts would have just expired. That’s why the GOP is basically lying when they say the tax cuts in the bill don’t add deficit.
That is a tax increase. If your rate goes from 22 to 25%, your income taxes went up
100%
These are issues moderate R’s and D’s would collaborate and agree upon if not for the extreme polarization in our current politics.
The problem in part is how unhealthy Americans are. Just look at how we have created body positive imaging with plus sized models who really need to get their weight under control. People need to live healthier lives in the States.
That aside, the American system is only “broken” if you don’t have good insurance. As a Canadian living in the US, the American system of seeing who you want and when is amazing. We don’t have that luxury in Canada. However, if you don’t have good insurance, I can see why many Americans would prefer the single payer systems. I like what I have and would never go back to the Canadian ways.
You also have the luxury of not going into debt paying off medical in Canada.
You don’t get medical care in canada, you dingbat.
Tax cuts as these are not great. Kansas tried this failed experiment a few years ago. It went so bad the Republicans chased the Republican governor out of state before the end of his second term.
I remember (Brownback was in the Senate when I worked on the Hill).
I’m not in favor of tax cuts when we have a defict and spending that neither party is able to curb.
But YOU knew the debt when YOU made the decision to bring kids into the world. YOU also knew it’s never getting fixed under either party.
Does that make YOU selfish?
As for the Healthcare, can you or anyone show exactly who is “losing” it? Sounds like the lazy refusing to work or volunteer 20 hours a week and illegals. You have an issue with that?
No. I don’t agree with “YOU also knew it’s never getting fixed under either party.”
Why did I know that?
RE: Healthcare
Do you agree it is a mess in this country? That the whole insurance company approach creates a massive and unnecessary middleman?
Because both parties haven’t shown any real concern about it in our lifetimes. And neither party has the will to make the tough choices on spending to fix it. I’m not even sure the public cares at this point sadly.
Thinking anything is going to change is either naive thinking or plain stupidity and I know you aren’t stupid.
You do not understand what you are screaming about. If you read the bill, you would understand that the one ‘big problem’ with the ‘Big Bill’ is the cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. The accounting of this bill is a joke. And the Republicans know it. How could the CBO consider revenue from tariffs when they change daily, and Taco Trump always delays them.
And the argument that the increase in tariffs in Trump’s first term didn’t cause inflation is also a joke given the effects of COVID on the economy. And disingenuous conservatives like yourself turned around and blamed Biden for the inflation unleashed by the Trump administration when he handed out trillions and trillions of dollars before he was removed from office.
The problem with Taco Trump’s 2nd term is he won’t be able to blame anyone but himself. He will try, and idiots like yourself will take the bait. But the rest of the world will see and know the truth. All you people know how to do is lie, lie, and lie. But eventually the truth will catch up with you, and it is not going to be pretty.
Sure you can defend him, but it is bad optics, especially given his last trip to Cancun.
And you can’t deny that such criticisms happened all the time in reverse during the last term…as even now we’re supposed to hold our tongues with this current disaster.
My point is that there is a lot to criticize Cruz for, but not for this.
This is simply a political attack on Lyin Ted.
Look at news reports about the other Senator, John Cornyn. None. No reports of him trying to rescue anyone. Where was Kamala Harris, though she can give the excuse that she doesn’t give a F about Texas.
Local mayor? I agree. Even Governor. By Senator has no role other than legislation, including emergency legislation.
Why in the world would you pose the question of where Kamala Harris was? She’s now a private citizen, which I’m sure you’re happy about. But to try to assign some level of fault on her for not rescuing people in Texas is absurd.
No member of Congress should ever take a vacation. Or a governor or mayor, for that matter. Not ever.
He has an uncanny ability to be on holiday while Texas suffers.
That being said, I don’t know where the Senators for any State are at any given time, so is it that big of a deal? Only if intentional, I’d say and there’s no indication of that.
Just Ted haters hating on Ted. Disaster response is the responsibility of the governor and the president. But, why let facts get in the way? The last thing first responders need is another politician showing up for a photo op. Cruz only needed to return from vacation for the optics, his presence in Texas has zero impact on the relief and rescue efforts.
Senators don’t run the state’s emergency response – they can and do make sure federal support is there and that has happened.
and I have seen Cruz on multiple news stories so he is back.
This is an immense tragedy that brings back memories of the NC/TN flooding last year.
We don’t need to turn it political.
but, if we want to make it political, let’s not forget that there were high wind and fire warnings BEFORE Karen Bass left LA to go to Africa.
there are plenty of reasons and opportunities to get political but disasters like this aren’t the least bit helpful for anyone.
Nice try Timmy
But Karen Bass was skewered politically and you were nowhere to defend her.
And don’t you worry, there will be plenty of blame to go around for the governor and local authorities on their slow response and failure to upgrade the warning systems.
For a delta hack you sure are very MAGA.
Yeah, as slimy as I find Ted Cruz, he did nothing wrong here and he’s allowed to go on vacation. I can even understand getting back on Sunday given that by the time most people found out about this it was late morning/early afternoon in Greece and most flights back to the US had already left.
What made the Cancun debacle so gross was that he left AFTER it was clear how devastating the storm was, not just to his state, but to his home city of Houston. Catastrophic weather events happen out of nowhere (increasingly so thanks to policies Cruz and his political allies support). If anything, this just shows how much the Cancun trip cost Cruz politically. Pretty much every time something like this happens, even if he did nothing wrong, it’s going to be a chance for Cruz’s opponents to remind voters what a weasel he was for the Cancun thing.
+1
He doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt.
RIP to all the flood victims in Texas. Sad to see the loss of lives, sometimes so young.
But I imagine the Orange Mussolini’s words if that tragedy had happened in California or New York. He would spit out words against the governors of those states. But since it happened in Texas, it’s only nature’s fault.
And yes, Ted Cruz is obviously a complete idiot.
Your English is horrible, why not post in your native language?
Quick shout out to the Coast Guard swimmer Ruskin that saved over a hundred lives on his first rescue mission. Texans, know that the nation grieves with you.
Cruz didn’t try to hide ( this time). I give him credit for that.
From a Texas reader – what exactly was he supposed to do? There was rain in the forecast, and some indications significant rain was possible, but the Hill Country’s been in severe drought for years, and there was no reasonable expectation at the time he left that something like this might happen. Unless the expectation is that public officeholders aren’t allowed to vacation on the off-chance a freak event might happen while they’re gone, which is nonsense if you ask me.
Frankly, I’m just sick and tired of the cheap political shots, which shows what the actual concern of the ghouls pushing this is (hint; it’s not the victims of the flooding).
I’m probably your most liberal Texas reader and commenter. I don’t think Cruz did anything wrong here, but what else could he have expected to happen once news of the floods broke? Ted Cruz has been famously unlikable his entire career. He was parodied widely for this on SNL in 2016 when he was running for president. The Cancun goof will haunt him his whole career. Texans might not be able to name our other Senator, but they know Ted Cruz flew away to Cancun during the freeze. And when the next major disaster hits our state, of course he’s in Greece because why not?
The problem is the political machine that keeps electing these people. In 2024 he ran against a very very moderate Democrat. We’re talking pro-gun, basically pro-life, close the border, fiscal conservative… And the election wasn’t even close. So we have this unliked person, who looks like a dummy everywhere he goes (Cancun, Greece, Tucker Carlson interview), yet people will continue to vote for him because he’s MAGA or whatever. It’s wild.
Politics is optics. Always has been. The moment it happened, someone should have “paged” him (I’m a geezer so using that terminology) and he should have gone back to his hotel and made videos and announcing he was on it.
I don’t think a well managed operation should have had Cruz ask for helicopters. His staff should have been on this on their own. I’m expected to be pro-active in my role at my organization.
Regarding the opposition candidate Colin Allred? Don’t know much about him. You said it wasn’t even close but that’s a vague assertion. It was an 8 percent spread after $75 (Dr. Evil) Million dollars spent each side. So it wasn’t a cakewalk. I read an issues summary that claimed that Allred wanted to restore RvW abortion rights. Allred and Cruz differed on oil energy policies, a MAJOR issue in Texas.
Note those are the issues mentioned. The primary one, often unspoken by either side, is affirmative action which drives ethnic/gender coalitions.
I am referring to Allred. He was a nice enough guy, but my point was that he was very moderate, and honestly had very principled views. If the voters in TX could choose, RvW would certainly be restored. Compare him to Cruz who really had no agenda other than “I support Trump.”
It seems like with someone like Allred, it might be easy to defeat Cruz who is very unpopular even among Republicans, but despite heavy spending on both sides, he still nearly won by 10 points.
Allred was sort of set up to fail, given his campaign was being dragged down by the poor approval rating of the Biden Administration, and the haphazard nature of VP Harris’s campaign. The Trump campaign made quite a lot of gains last year down south in the Hispanic/Latino heartland near the Rio Grande river.
I think Allred might have even won at any other time.
Disasters happen in any state at any moment. As a Texan, Senator Cruz did what any senator would do no matter what their party affiliation happens to be. It isn’t surprising to Texans that out-of-state individuals not knowing the history of the Guadeloupe River or ever visited it criticize Texas. It isn’t like bigger deeper rivers. The river rose so fast with historical large volumes of water in less than half a day fell at night. It is basically a very big arroyo (shallow) with some water. We do have drought quite a bit and it isn’t full.
Senator Cruz is allowed to take a vacation, just like Senator Obama at the time took vacations. No qualms with that. All families need rejuvenation from the grind of life whether you stay at home to vacation or go across the globe. It is called FREEDOM people. People on this blog that apparently like to travel should understand that or why are you on this blog?
Senator Cruz’s job is to help facilitate the resources needed and requested by the boots on the ground emergency personnel who truly know what they need. That can be done on the phone. Whether Senator Cruz got there the day of the flood or after really doesn’t matter as long as he was on the phone with the actual rescuers making sure they had what they needed. So to guess that he could have gotten there sooner and must have been waiting for business class is just ridiculous. Him being on the ground there doesn’t get the resources there any faster. Rest assured Senator Cruz will get what Texans need. Also, we aren’t a state that waits for government help. Our mindset is to roll up our sleeves, and bring to bear what ever we have (rescue dogs, rescue tools, helicopters, construction equipment, food skills, food donations,…) to the help our people. We do want to thank the America people outside our state for the federal government help we all pay taxes for and for ALL those individuals who took time off work and donated supplies to help us help our people, your Americans. Thank you!
If Trump stays out of the 2028 Primary and doesn’t endorse Vance, Cruz very well could be our next President.
So, as the ridiculous Orange Mussolini claims, we’ll have the ugliest first lady in the world…
But we will also have a President from the state you and your family swam into to get here.
That has to hold a special place in your heart getting out of that sh#thole we call Mexico. Now if you could just do something about that name of yours and make it the American version. You know, “Dick”.
Boorish. Y’all try to politicize everything. children are dead.
If Ted Cruz weren’t such an odious bellend, this wouldn’t happen to him as much
I think Cruz is an absolutely amoral weasel without any redeeming qualities whatsoever. He is also an impressively inept Senator who I have yet to see put anything before his own best interests. That said, in this particular case he was already on the way to Greece when this happened and does not deserve the vitriol being hurled in his direction on this one. He showed his true colors when he fled to Cancun in ’21 but deserves a pass on this one. If people want to criticize him, there’s gobs of horrific things he’s done, so pick one of them rather than the rare situation where he’s not actually at fault.