{"id":146342,"date":"2026-01-23T14:14:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T14:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/146342\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T14:14:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T14:14:15","slug":"ted-cruz-faces-social-media-storm-for-flying-to-california-as-texas-braces-for-icy-blast-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/146342\/","title":{"rendered":"Ted Cruz faces social media storm for flying to California as Texas braces for icy blast"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON (TNND) \u2014 Sen. <a href=\"https:\/\/thenationaldesk.com\/news\/americas-news-now\/texas-republican-senator-ted-cruz-says-acquiring-greenland-is-overwhelmingly-in-us-interests\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Ted Cruz <\/a>(R-TX) is catching heat on social media over a photo showing him on a plane that had landed in California just days before Texas and the Northeast brace for a historic <a href=\"https:\/\/thenationaldesk.com\/news\/americas-news-now\/massive-winter-storm-to-slam-most-of-us-with-snow-and-ice-forecasters-predict-meteorologists-wind-sleet-freezing-rain-treacherous-driving-roads-hazards-shoveling-supplies-pets-farm-animals\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">winter storm.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Political commentator Shea Jordan Smith posted the photo of Cruz deplaning on Tuesday to her X.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSenator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was spotted earlier today, January 20, 2026, on a plane heading to Laguna Beach as the state of Texas braces for a rare ice threat and arctic cold front,\u201d Smith wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Heavy snowfall, sleet, and freezing rain are expected in Texas on Friday, with the storm system bringing significant snow and rain to the Midwest and East Coast later in the weekend. More than two dozen states are under winter storm or ice alerts.<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson for Cruz defended his travels.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSenator Cruz is currently on pre-planned work travel that was scheduled weeks in advance,\u201d a spokesperson told KHOU. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe will be back in Texas before the storm is projected to hit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In 2021, Cruz faced major backlash over his decision to fly his family to Mexico amid a winter storm in the Lone Star state which claimed the lives of 246 people. A video showed Cruz and his family in Cancun while millions of Texans were without power. <\/p>\n<p>Cruz said he decided to take his family to Mexico after losing power, but admitted it was poor judgement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was obviously a mistake and in hindsight I wouldn\u2019t have done it,\u201d Cruz said at the time. <\/p>\n<p>Comment with Bubbles<\/p>\n<p>BE THE FIRST TO COMMENT<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was trying to make decisions,\u201d Cruz continued. \u201cWhen you\u2019ve got two girls who\u2019ve been cold for two days and haven\u2019t had heat or power and they\u2019re saying, \u2018Look, we don\u2019t have school, why don\u2019t we go, let\u2019s get out of here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (TNND) \u2014 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is catching heat on social media over a photo showing him&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-146342","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}