Ted Cruz says his wife is 'pissed' over leaked Cancun texts

Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-Texas) wife apparently had a mole in one of her recent group chats, and she's not happy.

The Texas senator sat down on Tuesday with the Ruthless podcast after drawing outrage for flying to Cancun with his family while Texas suffered through power outages last week. Amid the scandal, The New York Times managed to obtain texts Cruz's wife, Heidi, sent to their friends and neighbors about the trip.

"Heidi's pretty pissed at that," Cruz said of the leaked texts. "She actually was over at her neighbor's house yesterday sort of walking through [it]."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

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.

Sign up

Cruz noted his wife texted their neighbors, a group that includes both Republicans and Democrats, and he decried the texts leaking to the media as an example of the "ridiculously politicized and nasty" climate, adding, "Here's a suggestion: just don't be a--holes. Just treat each other as human beings."

The text messages obtained by the Times revealed how quickly Cruz's widely-panned trip to Cancun came together amid the crisis in Texas, with the senator's wife texting that her house was "FREEZING" and asking, "Anyone can or want to leave for the week? We may go to Cancun." The Times noted the messages were "provided to The New York Times and confirmed by a second person on the thread, who declined to be identified because of the private nature of the texts." Kwame Anthony Appiah, The New York Times Magazine's "in-house ethicist," told the Times the situation "strikes me as a pretty substantial breach of norms about confidentiality."

Cruz, who has since expressed regret over his trip to Cancun, didn't say on the podcast whether he's figured out who was behind the leak, though one can only presume a full, possibly years-long investigation is underway. Brendan Morrow