Ted Cruz blames daughters for controversial Cancun trip

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Texas senator Ted Cruz said the reason he took a controversial vacation to Mexico on Wednesday while his state was in winter disaster conditions was because he was “wanting to be a good dad.” In a statement released on Thursday, where he offers no apologies for the trip, Mr Cruz wrote, “With school cancelled for the week, our girls asked to take a trip with friends. Beto O’Rourke, the former Texas congressman who challenged Mr Cruz in a Senate race in 2018, slammed the senator on MSNBC on Thursday, saying he “is vacationing in Cancun right now when people are literally freezing to death in the state that he was elected to represent and serve.” Other Texas leaders weighed in as well. “As millions of Texans remain without power and don’t have access to clean water or food, @TedCruz has fled to Mexico for a beach vacation,” she wrote on Thursday on Twitter. “In this day and time, we can communicate and we can get things done remotely, and perhaps if things are as bad in Texas as I have heard, it may be a better option do it remotely.” Texas governor Greg Abbott has also faced calls to resign over his handling of the crisis, as snow hammers the state and has knocked out key utility services for hundreds of thousands of people.