‘Cancun is much nicer than Cabo’: Ted Cruz mocks Gavin Newsom’s vacation with reference to his own scandal

Ted Cruz has mocked Gavin Newsom’s vacation during a crisis by bringing up his own vacation during a crisis.

The Texas senator ridiculed California’s governor on Twitter, where he reposted the news that Mr Newsom is taking a family vacation in Mexico while his state remains in a state of emergency over Covid-19.

“Cancun is much nicer than Cabo,” Mr Cruz tweeted on Tuesday.

The Cancun quip was a reference to Mr Cruz’s own infamous Mexican vacation, which he took last February during a deadly winter storm in Texas. Over the course of the emergency, millions of Texans lost power and hundreds died.

Why Mr Cruz would deliberately bring this up was a mystery to many Twitter users, who quickly condemned his attempt at humour.

“There’s nothing funny about a Senator who runs away to a beach in Mexico while the people he represents are suffering from a massive storm and are without electricity,” one reader shot back.

“People in TX froze to death,” another commented. “But go ahead, make a joke.”

Others defended the senator.

“People need to be responsible for themselves,” one user wrote. “A federal legislator has nothing to do with it. Unlike a governor.”

Back in February, Mr Cruz cut his Cancun trip short after a fierce public backlash, and appeared to blame the trip on his daughters.

“With school cancelled for the week, our girls asked to take a trip with friends,” the senator said at the time. “Wanting to be a good dad, I flew down with them last night and am flying back this afternoon.”

In a separate interview, Mr Cruz said he regretted the vacation.

“It was obviously a mistake,” he said. “In hindsight, I wouldn’t have done it. I was trying to be a dad.”

Since then, the senator has been less penitent. Only a week after his apology, Mr Cruz joked about the scandal at an Orlando meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference.

“I gotta say, Orlando is awesome!” he told the crowd. “It’s not as nice as Cancun, but it’s nice!”

Earlier this month, Governor Newsom extended California’s state of emergency regarding the Covid-19 pandemic in order to prepare for a potential winter surge. That order has been in effect since March of 2020, and lately Covid cases and hospitalisations in the state have been falling.

So on Twitter, Mr Cruz’s comparison between a sudden weather emergency and a long-term, ongoing crisis struck many as unfair.

“One guy extended an order that has been going on for 20 months to try and prevent the Covid spread ahead of the winter months,” one user wrote. “The other guy just abandoned his state and tried to throw his daughters under the bus. See the difference?”

The Independent has reached out to Mr Cruz’s office for comment.