Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Friday made light of a controversy surrounding his decision to take a spontaneous trip to Mexico amid widespread power outages and freezing weather earlier this month.
Cruz referenced the controversy in opening his remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) which is taking place in Orlando, Florida this year.
"I gotta say, Orlando is awesome,” Cruz said. “It's not as nice as Cancun. But it's nice."
When an unprecedented winter storm swept through Texas earlier this month, millions of Texans were left without power amid freezing temperatures. As shivering Texans waited for their heat to be turned back on, airline passengers spotted Cruz boarding a flight to Cancun, Mexico.
Cruz returned to Texas the next day after photos of him on the plane went viral. He initially told reporters that he was accompanying his daughters down to Mexico for a long-planned vacation, but leaked text messages from Cruz’s wife to her neighbors showed the trip was hastily planned after the family lost power.
The rest of Cruz’s CPAC speech highlighted other conservative talking points, including skepticism of COVID-19 masks in certain situations and skepticism of the Black Lives Matter movement.
CPAC is an annual conference where conservative politicians and pundits meet to discuss the policy and direction of the conservative movement. Former President Donald Trump is expected to give his first live address since leaving the White House at the conference on Saturday.
