A GOP congressman from Texas slams Ted Cruz as it emerges he took his college roommate on Cancun trip

    • A Texas GOP congressman slammed Sen. Ted Cruz for his Cancun trip during winter storms that crippled the state.
    • Rep. Michael McCaul said: ‘When a crisis hits my state … I’m not going to go on some vacation.’
    • The comments come as Axios reports that Cruz failed to declare he invited his college roommate on the trip.
    • Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.

    A Republican congressman from Texas has criticized Sen. Ted Cruz for his decision to fly to Mexico during winter storms which crippled the state’s energy infrastructure and knocked out power for millions of Texans, labelling it a “big mistake.”

    Rep. Michael McCaul, the top-ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told CNN Sunday that Cruz’s decision to fly to Cancun and hastily return as he faced a political backlash was wrong.

    “Look, when a crisis hits my state, I’m there — I’m not going to go on some vacation,” Rep. McCaul told CNN’s State of the Union.

    “I know Mr. Cruz called it a mistake and he’s owned up to that, but I think that was a big mistake and as for me, I was on the ground trying to help my people out and my constituents, and that’s what we should be doing in a time of crisis,” McCaul added.

    The comments come as Axios reports that Cruz invited his college roommate on the trip.

    Axios reports that Cruz was joined by his former Princeton and Harvard Law roommate David Panton during the visit.

    President Joe Biden on Saturday declared a major crisis in Texas and sent federal funds to the state after extreme winter storms left millions without power or running water.

    Power had been restored to most homes as of Monday morning, according to the website poweroutage.us, but millions of Texans continued to experience water shortages over the weekend due to burst pipes and other problems, the Associated Press reported.

    Dozens of people are reported to have died as a result of the conditions, and the actual death toll is feared to be even higher, the Texas Tribune reported.

    Sen. Cruz was mocked over the weekend after posting photos of himself loading water bottles into a car as he sought to repair the political damage from his decision to fly to Cancun, Mexico for a vacation on Thursday. He returned to Texas less than 24 hours after arriving in Mexico and called the trip a “mistake.”

    Another GOP Texas politician was forced to defend his actions over the weekend after he flew out of the state on a private jet amid the crisis.

    State Rep. Gary Gates, who represents District 28 in Texas’s House of Representatives,told outlet Click2Houston that he fled the state with his family to Florida because some of his home flooded and because he was concerned about his family.

    “Because of my wife’s illness that she’s had for a couple of weeks and my handicapped daughter with her area of the house being flooded, I was just trying to find some easier accommodations for them and I was trying to find a place where I could continue to work and do the things I needed to do,” Gates said, according to the outlet.

    Source: Read Full Article