Latest news with #HeidiCruz
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
People Have Just 1 Word To Say To Ted Cruz After He Was Spotted On A European Vacation During Texas's Devastating Floods
No, that isn't a four-year-old headline. If I may jog your memory, back in February 2021, Texas and other parts of the Central and Southern United States experienced a massive winter storm that knocked out power plants and left residents without heat or electricity for several days. Hundreds of people were killed. Related: As the state quite literally froze over and his constituents went without basic necessities, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and his family booked a flight to Cancún, Mexico, and stayed at the Ritz-Carlton. The New York Times reported that in a group text with friends and neighbors, Cruz's wife, Heidi, revealed she wanted to escape their "FREEZING" house. Sen. Cruz stated he went to Mexico "to be a good dad" but later told reporters he had "second thoughts" on the plane to Cancún and that the trip was "obviously a mistake." He flew back one day after his departure amid public outcry about his absence from Texas. Here he is at the Cancún airport to board a flight home: Now, it's 2025, and the weather just keeps intensifying. Texas just experienced another devastating natural disaster with severe flooding over the Fourth of July weekend. And Ted Cruz home. Related: The Daily Beast reported that Cruz, who has served Texas in the US Senate since 2013, was sightseeing in Athens, Greece, when the flooding began. To be completely fair, he was already out of the country this time, but the outlet stated that he was still sightseeing with his wife a full day after 20 girls were reported missing from a summer camp in hard-hit Kerr County. Cruz's office stated that he returned to Texas "as fast as humanly possible," but the Daily Beast reported that he could have boarded many flights before the one he eventually took on Sunday. Over on r/politics, user OtmShanks55 posted an article from the New Republic about Cruz's absence, and people cut right to the jokes. The original poster called Cruz a "banana slug" and said they thought the "headline was a joke." Related: Someone joked that this is the "Ted Cruz Weather Warning System" at work... ...and someone replied that with the way things are going, we might actually have to rely on that pretty soon. Someone asked, "Is that guy always on vacation?" Others criticized his delay in returning home. There were name puns. Related: Lots of them. This person cut him a LITTLE slack, but wondered why Cruz would be out of town for the Fourth of July in the first place. And finally, most people just have one little word to say: What do you think? Sound off in the comments. Also in In the News: Also in In the News: Also in In the News:
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Ted Cruz pictured sightseeing in Greece after deadly floods hit Texas
Pictures have emerged of Senator Ted Cruz sightseeing in Greece a day after devastating floods hit his home state, killing at least 119 people. The 54-year-old lawmaker was pictured at the Parthenon in Athens on Saturday alongside his family after the deadly flooding ravaged Texas. One fellow holidaymaker pulled him up on not being back in Texas , telling The Daily Beast they approached Cruz and his family. The source said: 'He was with his family and a lone security guard. As he walked past us, I simply said, "20 kids dead in Texas and you take a vacation?"' Cruz ' grunted' in response to the questioning, while his wife Heidi shot the fellow tourist 'a dirty look', they told the outlet. Cruz's office previously said in a statement that he had returned from Greece 'as fast as humanly possible' after the floods struck on Friday. He eventually departed on a flight on Sunday, but flight tracking data indicates that he could have potentially left sooner, with multiple flights departing Athens to major US hubs all of Saturday. It is not known how busy those flights were. The senator could have potentially connected to Texas via Chicago, Atlanta, or Washington DC. Daily Mail reached out to Cruz's office for comment. The death toll from the floods reached 119 on Wednesday morning as authorities continue their search for at least 173 people still unaccounted for. Cruz infamously had to defend a trip to Cancun during a crisis in 2021. Cruz enraged citizens of his state by fleeing in the midst of the worst snow storms to hit in decades, with the power failing for millions and people left freezing in the subzero temperatures. Cruz claimed at the time that his then 10 and 12-year-old daughters asked him if they could go on vacation to Mexico with their friends, so he and his wife boarded a plane hours later. A spokesperson for Cruz said of his most recent trip: 'Within hours, he spoke by phone with Governor [Greg] Abbott, Lt. Governor [Dan] Patrick, Texas emergency management director Nim Kidd, and President Trump, working to ensure that the maximum federal assets were available for search and rescue. 'He and his team worked closely with local officials and with families of missing girls throughout that time. He promptly booked a flight back home. 'Given the time difference, he left Athens on Sunday morning and was back in Texas that night. And he was in Kerrville on the ground early Monday morning.' The Daily Mail has approached Cruz's office for comment over the earlier flights. On Wednesday he gave an emotional speech saying he wishes he had a 'time machine' to save lives. 'Texas will rebuild. We're strong, but there's also a process of engaging in a retrospective and saying, what is the exact timeline of what transpired, and what could we have done better look every one of us looking at the flooding in Texas,' Cruz continued. 'If we could step into a time machine and go back to two or three in the morning on July 4, we would rush into those little girls' cabins and get them the hell out of there,' Cruz added. In a Monday interview with Fox News Cruz said that 'something went wrong' when Camp Mystic staff were not warned of rising floodwaters on the Guadalupe River. Pictured: Heidi Cruz wife of Texas Senator Ted Cruz arrives back in Houston from Cancun, Mexico with her children in tow. The floods killed at least 27 campers and counselors at the all-girls Christian summer camp in Kerr County. 'The fact that you have girls asleep in their cabins when the flood waters are rising — something went wrong there. We've got to fix that and have a better system of warning to get kids out of harm's way,' Cruz told Fox. After this weekend's deadly floods, some Democratsblamed President Donald Trump for crippling a critical agency tasked with alerting Americans to impending natural disasters because of his recent government slashing efforts. DOGE, the Trump administration's cost-cutting effort previously headed by Elon Musk , had been pushing the federal National Weather Service (NWS) to cut jobs. The agency was part of the government-wide Trump administration effort to allow employees the option to retire early with a 'buyout' rather than face potential dismissal. However, it's unclear how many NWS employees took the buyout and it is not clear how staffing levels would have impacted the alert system in particular. Democrat Texas Rep Joaquin Castro noted during an appearance on CNN Sunday that he was unsure if NWS employees taking the buyout had a direct impact on the flood preparation and response. 'I can't say that conclusively,' he said. He added '[I don't] think it's helpful to have missing key personnel from the National Weather Service not in place to help prevent these tragedies.' Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was tasked by Trump to assess the damage in Texas over the weekend, fired back at criticisms from Democrats. 'When I got there on Saturday [the] number one question we got asked was, "We were notified, but we only had a couple hours of notice before this flash flood came. Was the National Weather Service proactive? What was the process that was followed?"' Noem said on Fox and Friends. She fiercely defended the agency saying it sent notifications and 'gave as much time as they could with the tools that they have.' 'We actually had staff on the ground - that was more than would have been in the past because of the holiday vacation,' Noem added. She went on to say that the NWS under Trump is getting an overhaul after being 'neglected' for years. The agency is operating on an 'ancient system that needed to be upgraded' and the 'new technology' will be installed soon, she promised. Democrat Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday asked a government watchdog to investigate whether any cuts at the NWS affected the forecasting agency's response to catastrophic flooding in Central Texas. Schumer is looking into whether staffing vacancies at the NWS's San Antonio office in particular contributed to 'delays, gaps, or diminished accuracy' in forecasting the flooding. He is specifically scrutinizing the local office's communications with Kerr County officials. The NWS has defended its forecasting and emergency management as the floods ravaged the area. Texas officials have also criticized the NWS after the catastrophic flood, arguing it failed to warn the public about impending danger . A top three leadership role at the NWS's San Antonio office has been vacant since earlier this year after Paul Yura, the US forecasting agency's warning coordination meteorologist, accepted an offer from the Trump administration to retire.
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Ted Cruz pictured sightseeing in Greece despite claim he returned to Texas floods 'as fast as humanly possible'
Pictures have emerged of Senator Ted Cruz sightseeing in Greece a day after devastating floods hit his home state, killing at least 119 people. The 54-year-old lawmaker was pictured at the Parthenon in Athens on Saturday alongside his family after the deadly flooding ravaged Texas. One fellow holidaymaker pulled him up on not being back in Texas, telling The Daily Beast they approached Cruz and his family. The source said: 'He was with his family and a lone security guard. As he walked past us, I simply said, "20 kids dead in Texas and you take a vacation?"' Cruz ' grunted' in response to the questioning, while his wife Heidi shot the fellow tourist 'a dirty look', they told the outlet. Cruz's office previously said in a statement that he had returned from Greece 'as fast as humanly possible' after the floods struck on Friday. He eventually departed on a flight on Sunday, but flight tracking data indicates that he could have potentially left sooner, with multiple flights departing Athens to major US hubs all of Saturday. It is not known how busy those flights were. The senator could have potentially connected to Texas via Chicago, Atlanta, or Washington DC. Daily Mail reached out to Cruz's office for comment. The death toll from the floods reached 119 on Wednesday morning as authorities continue their search for at least 173 people still unaccounted for. Cruz infamously had to defend a trip to Cancun during a crisis in 2021. Water rises from severe flooding along the Guadalupe Kerr County, Texas on Friday, July 4, 2025 Cruz enraged citizens of his state by fleeing in the midst of the worst snow storms to hit in decades, with the power failing for millions and people left freezing in the subzero temperatures. Cruz claimed at the time that his then 10 and 12-year-old daughters asked him if they could go on vacation to Mexico with their friends, so he and his wife boarded a plane hours later. A spokesperson for Cruz said of his most recent trip: 'Within hours, he spoke by phone with Governor [Greg] Abbott, Lt. Governor [Dan] Patrick, Texas emergency management director Nim Kidd, and President Trump, working to ensure that the maximum federal assets were available for search and rescue. 'He and his team worked closely with local officials and with families of missing girls throughout that time. He promptly booked a flight back home. 'Given the time difference, he left Athens on Sunday morning and was back in Texas that night. And he was in Kerrville on the ground early Monday morning.' The Daily Mail has approached Cruz's office for comment over the earlier flights. On Wednesday he gave an emotional speech saying he wishes he had a 'time machine' to save lives. 'Texas will rebuild. We're strong, but there's also a process of engaging in a retrospective and saying, what is the exact timeline of what transpired, and what could we have done better look every one of us looking at the flooding in Texas,' Cruz continued. 'If we could step into a time machine and go back to two or three in the morning on July 4, we would rush into those little girls' cabins and get them the hell out of there,' Cruz added. In a Monday interview with Fox News Cruz said that 'something went wrong' when Camp Mystic staff were not warned of rising floodwaters on the Guadalupe River. The floods killed at least 27 campers and counselors at the all-girls Christian summer camp in Kerr County. 'The fact that you have girls asleep in their cabins when the flood waters are rising — something went wrong there. We've got to fix that and have a better system of warning to get kids out of harm's way,' Cruz told Fox. After this weekend's deadly floods, some Democratsblamed President Donald Trump for crippling a critical agency tasked with alerting Americans to impending natural disasters because of his recent government slashing efforts. DOGE, the Trump administration's cost-cutting effort previously headed by Elon Musk, had been pushing the federal National Weather Service (NWS) to cut jobs. The agency was part of the government-wide Trump administration effort to allow employees the option to retire early with a 'buyout' rather than face potential dismissal. However, it's unclear how many NWS employees took the buyout and it is not clear how staffing levels would have impacted the alert system in particular. Democrat Texas Rep Joaquin Castro noted during an appearance on CNN Sunday that he was unsure if NWS employees taking the buyout had a direct impact on the flood preparation and response. 'I can't say that conclusively,' he said. He added '[I don't] think it's helpful to have missing key personnel from the National Weather Service not in place to help prevent these tragedies.' Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was tasked by Trump to assess the damage in Texas over the weekend, fired back at criticisms from Democrats. 'When I got there on Saturday [the] number one question we got asked was, "We were notified, but we only had a couple hours of notice before this flash flood came. Was the National Weather Service proactive? What was the process that was followed?"' Noem said on Fox and Friends. She fiercely defended the agency saying it sent notifications and 'gave as much time as they could with the tools that they have.' 'We actually had staff on the ground - that was more than would have been in the past because of the holiday vacation,' Noem added. She went on to say that the NWS under Trump is getting an overhaul after being 'neglected' for years. The agency is operating on an 'ancient system that needed to be upgraded' and the 'new technology' will be installed soon, she promised. Democrat Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday asked a government watchdog to investigate whether any cuts at the NWS affected the forecasting agency's response to catastrophic flooding in Central Texas. Schumer is looking into whether staffing vacancies at the NWS's San Antonio office in particular contributed to 'delays, gaps, or diminished accuracy' in forecasting the flooding. He is specifically scrutinizing the local office's communications with Kerr County officials. The NWS has defended its forecasting and emergency management as the floods ravaged the area. Texas officials have also criticized the NWS after the catastrophic flood, arguing it failed to warn the public about impending danger. A top three leadership role at the NWS's San Antonio office has been vacant since earlier this year after Paul Yura, the US forecasting agency's warning coordination meteorologist, accepted an offer from the Trump administration to retire. Yura's role was to build relationships with local emergency managers and officials, with the goal of building trust in the community before disaster strikes. The NWS's San Antonio office is responsible for forecasting the area's weather, collecting climate data and warning the public about dangerous conditions. The office issued multiple alerts Thursday afternoon and Friday morning about flash flood risks, according to local meteorologists. 'Even though those messages were issued, it does not mean it got to the people who needed them,' said Erik Nielsen, who studies extreme rain at Texas A&M University.
The Guardian
7 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Ted Cruz ensured Trump spending bill slashed weather forecasting funding
Ted Cruz has had quite a week. On Tuesday, the Texas senator ensured the Republican spending bill slashed funding for weather forecasting, only to then go on vacation to Greece while his state was hit by deadly flooding, a disaster critics say was worsened by cuts to forecasting. Cruz, who infamously fled Texas for Cancun when a crippling winter storm ravaged his state in 2021, was seen visiting the Parthenon in Athens with his wife, Heidi, on Saturday, a day after a flash flood along the Guadalupe River in central Texas killed more than 100 people, including dozens of children and counselors at a camp. The Greece trip, first reported by the Daily Beast, ended in time for Cruz to appear at the site of the disaster on Monday morning to decry the tragedy and promise a response from lawmakers. 'There's no doubt afterwards we are going to have a serious retrospective as you do after any disaster and say 'OK what could be done differently to prevent this disaster?'' Cruz told Fox News. 'The fact you have girls asleep in their cabins when flood waters are rising, something went wrong there. We've got to fix that and have a better system of warnings to get kids out of harm's way.' The National Weather Service has faced scrutiny in the wake of the disaster after underestimating the amount of rainfall that was dumped upon central Texas, triggering floods that caused the deaths and around $20bn in estimated economic damages. Late-night alerts about the dangerous floods were issued by the service but the timeliness of the response, and coordination with local emergency services, will be reviewed by officials. But before his Grecian holiday, Cruz ensured a reduction in funding to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (Noaa) efforts to improve future weather forecasting of events that cause the sort of extreme floods that are being worsened by the human-caused climate crisis. Cruz inserted language into the Republicans' 'big beautiful' reconciliation bill, prior to its signing by Donald Trump on Friday, that eliminates a $150m fund to 'accelerate advances and improvements in research, observation systems, modeling, forecasting, assessments, and dissemination of information to the public' around weather forecasting. A further $50m in Noaa grants to study climate-related impacts on oceans, weather systems and coastal ecosystems was also removed. Cruz was contacted by the Guardian with questions about these cuts and his trip to Greece. Environmental groups said the slashed funding is just the latest blow to federal agencies tasked with predicting and responding to disasters such as the Texas flood. More than 600 employees have exited the National Weather Service amid a Trump administration push to shrink the government workforce, leaving many offices short-staffed of meteorologists and other support workers. Around a fifth of all full-time workers at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), meanwhile, are also set to depart. 'Ted Cruz has spent years doing big oil's bidding, gutting climate research, defunding Noaa, and weakening the very systems meant to warn and protect the public,' said Cassidy DiPaola, communications director of Fossil Free Media. 'That's made disasters like this weekend's flood in Texas even more deadly. Now he's doubling down, pushing through even more cuts in the so-called big beautiful bill. Texans are dead and grieving, and Cruz is protecting big oil instead of the people he's supposed to represent. It's disgraceful.' Cruz, who has previously cast doubt over the scientific reality of the climate crisis, said that complaints about cuts to the National Weather Service are 'partisan finger pointing', although he conceded that people should've been evacuated earlier. 'Some are eager to point at the National Weather Service and saying that cuts there led to to a lack of warning,' the Republican senator told reporters on Monday. 'I think that's contradicting by the facts and if you look in the facts in particular number one and these warnings went out hours before the flood became a true emergency.' The Trump administration, too, has rejected claims that the service was short-staffed, pointing out that extra forecasters were assigned to the San Antonio and San Angelo field offices. The service's employees union has said the offices were staffed adequately but were missing some key positions, such as a meteorologist role designed to coordinate with local emergency managers. 'People were sleeping in the middle of the night when the flood came,' said Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary. 'That was an act of God; it's not the administration's fault the floods hit when it did.' Leavitt said any blame placed upon Trump for flood forecasting is a 'depraved lie'. Resources for weather forecasting, as well as broader work to understand the unfolding climate crisis, could be set for further cutbacks, however. The Trump administration's 2026 budget proposal seeks to dismantle all of Noaa's weather and climate research labs, along with Noaa's entire research division. This would halt research and development of new weather forecasting technologies and methods. This planned budget, which would need to be passed by the Republican-held Congress to become law, comes as the threats from extreme weather events continue to mount due to rising global temperatures. 'We have added a lot of carbon to the atmosphere, and that extra carbon traps energy in the climate system,' said Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University. 'Because of this extra energy, every weather event we see now carries some influence from climate change. The only question is how big that influence is. 'Measuring the exact size takes careful attribution studies, but basic physics already tells us the direction – climate change very likely made this event stronger.'
The Guardian
7 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Ted Cruz ensured Trump spending bill slashed weather forecasting funding
Ted Cruz has had quite a week. On Tuesday, the Texas senator ensured the Republican spending bill slashed funding for weather forecasting, only to then go on vacation to Greece while his state was hit by deadly flooding, a disaster critics say was worsened by cuts to forecasting. Cruz, who infamously fled Texas for Cancun when a crippling winter storm ravaged his state in 2021, was seen visiting the Parthenon in Athens with his wife, Heidi, on Saturday, a day after a flash flood along the Guadalupe River in central Texas killed more than 100 people, including dozens of children and counselors at a camp. The Greece trip, first reported by the Daily Beast, ended in time for Cruz to appear at the site of the disaster on Monday morning to decry the tragedy and promise a response from lawmakers. 'There's no doubt afterwards we are going to have a serious retrospective as you do after any disaster and say 'OK what could be done differently to prevent this disaster?'' Cruz told Fox News. 'The fact you have girls asleep in their cabins when flood waters are rising, something went wrong there. We've got to fix that and have a better system of warnings to get kids out of harm's way.' The National Weather Service has faced scrutiny in the wake of the disaster after underestimating the amount of rainfall that was dumped upon central Texas, triggering floods that caused the deaths and around $20bn in estimated economic damages. Late-night alerts about the dangerous floods were issued by the service but the timeliness of the response, and coordination with local emergency services, will be reviewed by officials. But before his Grecian holiday, Cruz ensured a reduction in funding to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (Noaa) efforts to improve future weather forecasting of events that cause the sort of extreme floods that are being worsened by the human-caused climate crisis. Cruz inserted language into the Republicans' 'big beautiful' reconciliation bill, prior to its signing by Donald Trump on Friday, that eliminates a $150m fund to 'accelerate advances and improvements in research, observation systems, modeling, forecasting, assessments, and dissemination of information to the public' around weather forecasting. A further $50m in Noaa grants to study climate-related impacts on oceans, weather systems and coastal ecosystems was also removed. Cruz was contacted by the Guardian with questions about these cuts and his trip to Greece. Environmental groups said the slashed funding is just the latest blow to federal agencies tasked with predicting and responding to disasters such as the Texas flood. More than 600 employees have exited the National Weather Service amid a Trump administration push to shrink the government workforce, leaving many offices short-staffed of meteorologists and other support workers. Around a fifth of all full-time workers at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), meanwhile, are also set to depart. 'Ted Cruz has spent years doing big oil's bidding, gutting climate research, defunding Noaa, and weakening the very systems meant to warn and protect the public,' said Cassidy DiPaola, communications director of Fossil Free Media. 'That's made disasters like this weekend's flood in Texas even more deadly. Now he's doubling down, pushing through even more cuts in the so-called big beautiful bill. Texans are dead and grieving, and Cruz is protecting big oil instead of the people he's supposed to represent. It's disgraceful.' Cruz, who has previously cast doubt over the scientific reality of the climate crisis, said that complaints about cuts to the National Weather Service are 'partisan finger pointing', although he conceded that people should've been evacuated earlier. 'Some are eager to point at the National Weather Service and saying that cuts there led to to a lack of warning,' the Republican senator told reporters on Monday. 'I think that's contradicting by the facts and if you look in the facts in particular number one and these warnings went out hours before the flood became a true emergency.' The Trump administration, too, has rejected claims that the service was short-staffed, pointing out that extra forecasters were assigned to the San Antonio and San Angelo field offices. The service's employees union has said the offices were staffed adequately but were missing some key positions, such as a meteorologist role designed to coordinate with local emergency managers. 'People were sleeping in the middle of the night when the flood came,' said Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary. 'That was an act of God; it's not the administration's fault the floods hit when it did.' Leavitt said any blame placed upon Trump for flood forecasting is a 'depraved lie'. Resources for weather forecasting, as well as broader work to understand the unfolding climate crisis, could be set for further cutbacks, however. The Trump administration's 2026 budget proposal seeks to dismantle all of Noaa's weather and climate research labs, along with Noaa's entire research division. This would halt research and development of new weather forecasting technologies and methods. This planned budget, which would need to be passed by the Republican-held Congress to become law, comes as the threats from extreme weather events continue to mount due to rising global temperatures. 'We have added a lot of carbon to the atmosphere, and that extra carbon traps energy in the climate system,' said Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University. 'Because of this extra energy, every weather event we see now carries some influence from climate change. The only question is how big that influence is. 'Measuring the exact size takes careful attribution studies, but basic physics already tells us the direction – climate change very likely made this event stronger.'
