Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) cut short his family vacation in Greece as catastrophic flooding devastated Texas over the holiday weekend, leaving more than 100 people dead in what officials describe as one of the state’s worst natural disasters.
Cruz was photographed touring the Parthenon in Athens on Saturday evening, approximately 24 hours after floodwaters swept through the Texas Hill Country.
The Republican senator had cast his vote on President Trump’s budget bill before departing for the preplanned overseas trip.
The flooding struck Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer camp in Kerr County, with particular devastation.
At least 27 campers and counselors perished when rising waters from the Guadalupe River overwhelmed the facility while children slept in their cabins, per reports.
Cruz’s office released a timeline defending the senator’s actions during the crisis.
“The Senator was already in the middle of preplanned family vacation travel overseas when the flooding occurred on July 4,” his office stated.
Cruz immediately contacted state officials and President Trump upon learning of the disaster, according to the statement.
His office confirmed he “promptly booked a flight back home” within hours of the initial reports.
The senator departed Athens on Sunday morning due to the time difference and arrived back in Texas that same evening.
He was on the ground in Kerrville early Monday morning for briefings with state officials.
Photos of Cruz and his wife Heidi vacationing in Greece were first published by the Daily Beast.
Cruz’s spokeswoman Macarena Martinez called the publication “a bull*** piece published by a bull*** rag outlet with no credibility, and with no regard for the tragedy in Texas.”
Martinez defended her boss on social media, writing: “The Senator is on the ground in Texas and arrived as fast as humanly possible. I explained all of this to their two-faced reporter.”
The vacation drew immediate comparisons to Cruz’s controversial February 2021 trip to Cancun during a devastating winter storm, Resist the Mainstream previously covered.
That incident left millions of Texans without power in subzero temperatures while Cruz vacationed in Mexico.
During the 2021 crisis, Cruz claimed his daughters, then 10 and 12 years old, had asked to vacation with friends in Mexico.
He later admitted the trip was “obviously a mistake” and said he wouldn’t repeat such actions.
Cruz addressed unusual questions about weather modification during a Monday press conference.
“To the best of my knowledge, there is zero evidence of anything related to anything like weather modification. Look, the internet can be a strange place. People can come up with all sorts of crazy theories,” he said.
Speaking to Fox News on Monday, Cruz criticized the warning system that failed to alert Camp Mystic staff about rising floodwaters.
“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 the network.
Democrats quickly blamed President Trump’s cost-cutting initiatives for potentially hampering disaster response capabilities.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) had pressured the National Weather Service to reduce staffing through early retirement buyouts.
The Daily Mail reported that Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) appeared on CNN Sunday to discuss potential connections between NWS staffing cuts and the flood response.
When asked directly if buyouts affected the disaster preparation, Castro initially responded: “No, I can’t say that conclusively.” However, Castro added that he didn’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 Trump dispatched to assess Texas damage, defended the weather service’s response.
She reported that officials on the ground asked about notification timelines, saying they “only had a couple hours of notice before this flash flood came.”
Noem stated the NWS “sent notifications and gave as much time as they could with the tools that they have.”
She emphasized that staff levels were actually higher than typical due to holiday scheduling.
The post Ted Cruz Explains Untimely Family Vacation During Yet Another Natural Disaster as Texas Flood Death Toll Climbs Above 100 appeared first on Resist the Mainstream.
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Author: Jordyn M.
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