While unforgiving winter storms slammed Texas and wrecked the state's power grid, photos surfaced of the Republican Senator Ted Cruz and his family flying to Mexico for a warm and sunny vacation. After some major backlash, Cruz flew back to Houston the next day and later admitted the family vacay was a mistake.
Now the senator's wife is furious with him because of some leaked text messages inviting their neighbors to escape to a resort in Cancun, Mexico amid the harsh winter weather that left many Texas residents without power or clean water.
"I will say, Heidi's pretty p---ed at that," Cruz said on the "Ruthless" podcast. "She texted several of our neighbors. Now look, our neighbors, we've got a number of Republicans who are our neighbors, but we also have a number of Democrats."
"It's a sign of how ridiculously politicized and nasty — here's a suggestion, just don't be a--holes. Treat each other as human beings," he continued.
In the texts obtained by the New York Times, Heidi Cruz reportedly told neighbors on a group thread Wednesday that her home was "FREEZING." She invited neighbors to join the Cruz family on a trip to the Ritz-Carlton resort in Cancun, adding that they had stayed there "many times."
Cruz also pushed back against reports that the family dog, Snowflake, was in danger when the family left town on the podcast.
"I spend too much time on Twitter, so I've seen apparently I literally fed Snowflake to the wolves," Cruz said. "Of all the ridiculous stories, look, I love Snowflake. He was home with a dogsitter, and actually the heat and power was back on. This reporter went to our house and took a picture of Snowflake looking out the front door, which he does most days."
Cruz will be expected to answer "some very real questions" after the Texas power grid failed.
