Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is drawing warmth for chasing the solar in Europe as his constituents again residence handled a devastating disaster.
Cruz was captured queuing as much as go to the Parthenon in Athens, Greece, on Saturday afternoon native time, after Texas authorities had already introduced 24 deaths from the catastrophic flash floods within the Texas Hill Nation and Gov. Greg Abbott (R) had signed a catastrophe declaration to help the response.
Cruz, although, didn’t return residence till Sunday night. Nonetheless, his workplace claims he arrived in Texas “as quick as humanly attainable.”
An eyewitness told The Daily Beast, which was first to report on Cruz’s journey to Athens, they confronted the senator over the timing of his go to to the archaeological web site.
“As he walked previous us, I merely mentioned, ‘20 children lifeless in Texas and you’re taking a trip?’” the eyewitness mentioned.
“He form of grunted and walked on,” the particular person added. “His spouse shot me a unclean look. Then they continued on with their tour information.”
Macarena Martinez, Cruz’s communication director, ripped The Every day Beast’s report, calling it a “bullshit piece.”
“The Senator is on the bottom in Texas and arrived as quick as humanly attainable,” Martinez wrote on X, previously Twitter. “I defined all of this to their two-faced reporter.”
The outlet up to date its article with Martinez’s reply, including that there have been a number of flights the senator might have boarded from Athens to achieve San Antonio sooner. It was unclear if these flights had seats accessible, The Every day Beast famous.
Whereas Cruz’s workplace didn’t particularly state when the senator booked his flight to return to Texas, it mentioned he was in fixed communication with native officers, together with the governor, since studying in regards to the tragedy unfolding.
“He and his staff labored intently with native officers and with households of lacking ladies all through that point,” his workplace mentioned in an announcement shared with HuffPost. “He promptly booked a flight again residence. Given the time distinction, he left Athens on Sunday morning and was again in Texas that evening.”
Cruz appeared on “Fox & Friends” on Monday morning from Kerrville, Texas.
The floods, which started early Friday, had claimed over 100 lives as of Monday, whereas officers proceed to seek for these lacking within the area.
This isn’t the primary time Cruz has drawn scrutiny for having fun with sunny journeys overseas whereas his state contends with crises. In 2021, the senator was noticed boarding a aircraft for Cancun whereas his constituents handled energy outages brought on by historic winter climate. Cruz has since called his decision to embark on the journey “clearly a mistake.”
Including to the controversy surrounding his Athens journey, previous to his departure for Europe, Cruz voted in favor of Trump’s so-called Massive Lovely Invoice, making certain the laws canceled funding meant to “speed up advances and enhancements in analysis, statement programs, modeling, forecasting, assessments, and dissemination of data to the general public” because it pertains to climate forecasts, according to The Guardian.
The invoice additionally eradicated the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s grants for “the examine of climate-related impacts on oceans, climate programs and coastal ecosystems,” the outlet famous.
Cruz’s workplace didn’t handle the cuts when responding to a HuffPost request for remark.
Democrats have demanded an investigation into how the Trump administration’s cuts to federal businesses might have affected the forecast and response to the floods.
