‘Say no to your kids’: Houston police chief slams Ted Cruz

Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo blasted Texas Republican Senator and Houston resident Ted Cruz after he flew off to Cancun to avoid power outages and freezing temperatures in his home state.

“We’ve all made poor choices,” Mr Acevedo said while speaking to CNN, adding: “I think it’s a little tone-deaf. And sometimes you got to teach your kids the word ‘no’ and this probably would have been a good time to tell your kids ‘no, we’re blessed, but we have to wait till we get Texas on our feet’. Again, we’ve all made bad decisions sometimes. As a dad, maybe his heart got the best of him.”

Mr Cruz said he made the trip at the request of his daughters. Speaking to Houston outlet ABC13 on Thursday night, Mr Cruz said: “You question what I was thinking, and... I was trying to take care of my family. I was trying to take care of my kids. It’s unfortunate, the firestorm that came from it. It was not my intention. In saying yes to my daughters to somehow diminish all the Texans that were going through real hardship.”

A winter storm brought record-breaking temperatures to Texas this week, with Sunday seeing thermometers drop to lows of 0F (-18C). As many as three million Texans were left without power or heating, due to the continued surge in demand — and ongoing power outages.

More than 13 million have been advised to boil their drinking water and pipes are bursting inside houses and apartments across the state causing serious damage that will take months to fix.

Mr Cruz was forced to return home on Thursday after flying to a luxury resort in Mexico on Wednesday. He had initially planned to stay until Saturday.

Mr Cruz has been roundly criticised for his decision to leave. The editorial board of his hometown paper, The Houston Chronicle, called for his resignation, just as they did after the Capitol riot.

They wrote: “This editorial board called for Cruz’s resignation last month for his role in the Capitol riot, saying he wouldn’t be dearly missed by constituents anyway because he has never prioritized the unsexy tedium of governing and advocacy over the goal nearest and dearest to his heart: winning the presidency. But escaping to Mexico hits a new low — even by the senator’s own standards.”

The board added that Mr Cruz “always seemed a little too calculated for such a gross error in political judgment. We were wrong. Cruz’s trip to Mexico was foolish, callous and sadly telling of his approach to the job over the past eight years. Take our advice, senator, and resign. Seems like you could use a break and we could, too, from an ineffective politician who, even in crisis, puts his personal itinerary before the needs of Texans”.