“So many elected leaders in Texas have failed their constituents,” the New York Democrat wrote in an email. One of Cruz’s most aggressive critics on the left, Ocasio-Cortez, encouraged her supporters on Thursday to volunteer for a “welfare check phone bank” to help Texans affected by the storm. We don’t have water and we don’t have food,” she said.ĭemocrats across Washington were eager to talk about the controversy. “They are taking vacations and leaving the country, so they don’t have to deal with this, and we are freezing to death. Livia Trevino, a 24-year-old whose Austin home was still without water Thursday, said she felt abandoned by government leaders. News of Cruz’s absence quickly rippled across the state. In Austin, some hospitals faced a loss in water pressure and, in some cases, heat. Texas officials ordered 7 million people - one-quarter of the population of the nation’s second-largest state - to boil tap water before drinking the water, after days of record low temperatures that damaged infrastructure and froze pipes. Hundreds of thousands of people in Texas woke up Thursday to a fourth day without power, and a water crisis was unfolding after winter storms wreaked havoc on the state’s power grid and utilities. “I’m here trying to take care of my family and look after my friends and others that are still without power,” West said. “That’s something that he has to answer to his constituents about,” Texas GOP Chair Allen West said when asked whether Cruz’s travel was appropriate while Texans are without power and water. “In hindsight,” he said, “I wouldn’t have done it.”Įven the state Republican Party chair declined to come to Cruz’s defense on Thursday. “We want our power back, our water on, and our homes warm.”Īs he returned later Thursday to a state where hundreds of thousands of residents were still grappling with the fallout of a storm that crippled the power grid, he was more direct about the mistake. “My staff and I are in constant communication with state and local leaders to get to the bottom of what happened in Texas,” he continued. “Wanting to be a good dad, I flew down with them last night and am flying back this afternoon,” Cruz wrote. He issued a statement earlier in the day acknowledging an “infuriating week for Texans.” He said he accompanied his family to Cancun, Mexico, on Wednesday after his daughters asked to go on a trip with friends, given that school was canceled for the week. He’s also seen as a likely candidate for the GOP presidential nomination that year.Ĭruz moved quickly on Thursday to try to contain the self-inflicted damage. Narrowly reelected to the Senate in 2018, he won’t face voters in Texas again until 2024. The question is whether the damage will have a lasting impact on Cruz’s political prospects. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive firebrand. Billboards calling for his resignation stood along Texas highways earlier in the month.īy Thursday, Cruz was knocked by everyone from the chair of the Texas Republican Party to New York Rep. More recently, he emerged as a leader in former President Donald Trump’s push to overturn the results of the November election. If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today? Any amount helps.As criticism of the trip mounted, Cruz returned to Texas and said it was “obviously a mistake.”Ĭruz is already one of the most villainized Republicans in Congress, having created adversaries across the political spectrum in a career defined by far-right policies and fights with the establishment. (And no matter how our work is funded, we have strict guidelines on editorial independence.) That’s why, even though advertising is still our biggest source of revenue, we also seek grants and reader support. It’s important that we have several ways we make money, just like it’s important for you to have a diversified retirement portfolio to weather the ups and downs of the stock market. And we can’t do that if we have a paywall. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world - not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple of big issues with relying on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on.įirst, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?
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