Fox News reporter mocks 'Fled' Cruz for returning to help Texans 'right after he finishes a margarita'
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) got plenty of mockery — and outrage — from his regular critics for flying down to Mexico on Wednesday night as the state he represents in Congress was mired in power outages, water outages, and freezing temperatures. He made it worse by blaming his daughters and suggesting his four-day vacation to the Ritz-Carlton Cancún was actually only ever supposed to be an overnight drop-off mission. "If you like piña coladas and getting caught on a plane..." tweeted Chasten Glezman Buttigieg, husband of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
But even Fox News found Cruz's aborted vacation south of the border to be in bad taste and ripe for ribbing. On Tucker Carlson's show Thursday night, reporter Trace Gallagher outlined the Cruz controversy, then read parts of his shifting statements. "Now he says he wants to help get the power and the water back on — right after he finishes a margarita," he told guest host Mark Steyn, noting his joke and even getting a brief chuckle from Steyn.
Gallagher is on the news side of Fox News, but the opinion panelists on anchor Bret Baier's Thursday evening show were also unanimous in their criticism of Cruz.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Cruz isn't generally known as a unifying political figure, but these are strange times.
