While Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was dealing with an embarrassing public relations disaster of his own making — flying to Cancún, Mexico, with his family while his home state was reeling from blackouts and water shutdowns amid frigid temperatures — his political adversary Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) was spearheading an effort to raise funds for those in dire need.
Ocasio-Cortez announced on Thursday that she was raising money for five nonprofit groups in Texas, including food banks, organizations that provide aid to aging Texans, and organizations that focus on helping homeless populations. Within hours, the Democratic congresswoman announced that donations had surpassed $1 million.
“We officially raised $1 million for Texas relief at 9:17pm,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a subsequent tweet. “100% of this relief is going straight to Texan food assistance, homelessness relief, elder care, and more.”
Millions of Texans are presently dealing with the crisis that came about after the failure of the state’s electrical grid, which runs independently of federally regulated grids in the U.S. The failure of the grid resulted in millions being without power during an unusual winter cold front in the state. At least 7 million residents were under boil-water advisories on Thursday, and many communities were dealing with food shortages as well.
On Wednesday, as millions were without power, images of Cruz and his family departing from a Texas airport for a trip to Cancún started to circulate on social media. After facing an avalanche of outrage online, Cruz, who was originally planning to stay in Mexico until Saturday, booked a flight back to the U.S. on Thursday morning, pinning the blame on his daughters for his decision to flee the state in its moment of crisis.
“With school cancelled for the week, our girls asked to take a trip with friends. Wanting to be a good dad, I flew down with them last night and am flying back this afternoon,” Cruz said in a statement.
In a subsequent interview with a local ABC affiliate station, Cruz expounded on his excuse:
They said, ‘Look, let’s take a trip. Let’s go with some of our friends and let’s get out of here and let’s go somewhere warm. And [Cruz’s wife Heidi] and I said okay.
The Texas senator claimed the trip was intended to “take care of [his] family,” even as millions of other Texan families were struggling to do the same back in the state.
Some have noted the hypocrisy of Cruz taking a vacation during an emergency situation, as the lawmaker has been vocal about others who have acted similarly. He attacked the mayor of Austin, for example, for taking a trip to Cabo during the coronavirus pandemic last year. He’s also lashed out at former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who took a beach vacation on closed state land during a state government shutdown, and spoke out against former President Barack Obama for playing golf while in office.
“I think the President should actually stand up and do his job as commander-in-chief, should spend less time on the golf course and more time doing the job to which he was elected,” Cruz said of Obama in 2014.
This week wasn’t the first time, however, that Cruz has acted in a hypocritical way. While he’s been happy to criticize others for traveling during the COVID-19 crisis, Cruz himself took a vacation to Jamaica during the Independence Day weekend last year at a time when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had warned Americans to “avoid all nonessential international travel” due to the pandemic.
Texas was seeing an upswing in new cases of coronavirus in the month preceding Cruz’s vacation travels in July. The seven-day rate of new cases on June 1, 2020, being reported in the state was at 1,499 cases per day. By July 1, that rate had jumped to 7,070 cases per day.
Help us Prepare for Trump’s Day One
Trump is busy getting ready for Day One of his presidency – but so is Truthout.
Trump has made it no secret that he is planning a demolition-style attack on both specific communities and democracy as a whole, beginning on his first day in office. With over 25 executive orders and directives queued up for January 20, he’s promised to “launch the largest deportation program in American history,” roll back anti-discrimination protections for transgender students, and implement a “drill, drill, drill” approach to ramp up oil and gas extraction.
Organizations like Truthout are also being threatened by legislation like HR 9495, the “nonprofit killer bill” that would allow the Treasury Secretary to declare any nonprofit a “terrorist-supporting organization” and strip its tax-exempt status without due process. Progressive media like Truthout that has courageously focused on reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza are in the bill’s crosshairs.
As journalists, we have a responsibility to look at hard realities and communicate them to you. We hope that you, like us, can use this information to prepare for what’s to come.
And if you feel uncertain about what to do in the face of a second Trump administration, we invite you to be an indispensable part of Truthout’s preparations.
In addition to covering the widespread onslaught of draconian policy, we’re shoring up our resources for what might come next for progressive media: bad-faith lawsuits from far-right ghouls, legislation that seeks to strip us of our ability to receive tax-deductible donations, and further throttling of our reach on social media platforms owned by Trump’s sycophants.
We’re preparing right now for Trump’s Day One: building a brave coalition of movement media; reaching out to the activists, academics, and thinkers we trust to shine a light on the inner workings of authoritarianism; and planning to use journalism as a tool to equip movements to protect the people, lands, and principles most vulnerable to Trump’s destruction.
We urgently need your help to prepare. As you know, our December fundraiser is our most important of the year and will determine the scale of work we’ll be able to do in 2025. We’ve set two goals: to raise $150,000 in one-time donations and to add 1,500 new monthly donors by midnight on December 31.
Today, we’re asking all of our readers to start a monthly donation or make a one-time donation – as a commitment to stand with us on day one of Trump’s presidency, and every day after that, as we produce journalism that combats authoritarianism, censorship, injustice, and misinformation. You’re an essential part of our future – please join the movement by making a tax-deductible donation today.
If you have the means to make a substantial gift, please dig deep during this critical time!
With gratitude and resolve,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy