After having initially claimed the ill-advised getaway was requested by his young daughters, Cruz recently fired back and said that the media was to blame for the backlash he endured after images surfaced of him at the airport.
In a Monday interview with conservative radio host Dana Loesch, who previously served as the spokesperson of the National Rifle Association, Cruz accused the media of suffering from “Trump withdrawal,” a condition he says fueled widespread criticism over his trip to Cancun, a popular resort area in Mexico that borders the Caribbean Sea.
"I will say, to venture into practicing medicine, that I actually want to diagnose the media. The media is suffering from acute Trump withdrawal, where for four years every day, they could foam at the mouth and be obsessed with [former US President] Donald Trump, and now that he has receded from their day-to-day storyline, they don't know what to do with themselves,” Cruz said after engaging in a joke about him being able to control the weather.
“So, the media obsession with the fact that I took my family to the beach last week was a bit much,” the senator added. Although Cruz later stated he was just “trying to be a dad,” the Texas lawmaker added the trip “was dumb to do because it gave the knuckleheads ammunition to launch attacks and engage in ridicule.”
“That's what they do. They engage in attacks nonstop,” he stressed, before calling on the focus to instead be shifted toward the causes of the Texas crisis, which at its height saw millions of residents go days without electricity or water as much of the state was hit with extremely low temperatures. To date, dozens of residents have died, some from carbon monoxide poisoning as others have frozen to death.
Cruz echoed his statements later Monday during an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, who has largely framed Cruz’s trip as a “quick dropoff” and “escort” of his young daughters. However, it’s worth noting that Cruz was actually scheduled to stay in Mexico through the weekend, and only returned sooner after public backlash over the trip.
During a Tuesday interview on the conservative “Ruthless” podcast, Cruz revealed that his wife, Heidi, was “pretty pissed” about how group text messages with her neighbors were leaked to The New York Times. Those messages saw Cruz’s wife remark how their house was “freezing” and even included an invitation to join their trip.
The latest developments over Cruz’s Mexico trip came as United Airlines announced late last week that it was investigating who leaked details of the lawmaker’s return flight to Texas. Sharing such information is prohibited.