
Ted Cruz cuts short European vacation due to deadly Texas flooding
The Texas Republican was touring the Parthenon with his wife Heidi just over 24 hours after the Guadeloupe River overflowed its banks early on the morning of July 4, a witness told The Daily Beast.
'The Senator was already in the middle of preplanned family vacation travel overseas when the flooding occurred on July 4,' Cruz's office told The Post.
3 Ted Cruz flew back from Athens on Sunday morning after the deadly flash floods struck Texas, according to his office.
Fox News
3 Rescue workers are seen on land and on a boat as they search for missing people near Camp Mystic along the Guadalupe River after a flash flood swept through the area Sunday, July 6, 2025, in Hunt, Texas.
AP
'Within hours, he spoke by phone with Governor [Greg] Abbott, Lt. Governor [Dan] Patrick, Texas Emergency Management Director Nim Kidd, and President Trump, working to ensure that the maximum federal assets were available for search and rescue.'
Cruz, 54, flew back from 'Athens on Sunday morning and was back in Texas that night,' his office added.
The unidentified witness told The Daily Beast that Cruz 'was with his family and a lone security guard' at the world-famous site. 'As he walked past us, I simply said, '20 kids dead in Texas and you take a vacation?'
'He sort of grunted and walked on. His wife shot me a dirty look. Then they continued on with their tour guide.'
Cruz spokesperson, Macarena Martinez, blasted the Daily Beast story as 'A bulls— piece published by a bulls— rag outlet with no credibility, and with no regard for the tragedy in Texas. 'The Senator is on the ground in Texas and arrived as fast as humanly possible.'
At least 95 people have been killed by the flooding and at least 41 are believed to be missing.
3 Items lie scattered inside a cabin at Camp Mystic after deadly flooding in Kerr County, Texas, U.S., July 5, 2025.
REUTERS
Critics said the Cruz's European vacation evoked memories of his vacation in Cancun during the February 2021 power crisis in Texas following three severe winter storms — which left an estimated 4.5 million homes and businesses shivering in the dark.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
North Texas mayor joins race for Fort Worth-area state Senate District 9
Another Republican has entered the race for Texas Senate District 9. 'It's official,' Keller Mayor Armin Mizani said in his post on X. 'I'm in.' Mizani will be on the ballot along with fellow Republican Leigh Wambsganss and Democrat Taylor Rehmet. Whoever wins in the special election on Nov. 4 will represent much of Northwest Tarrant County including North Richland Hills, Keller and White Settlement. The race will go into a runoff if a candidate doesn't get more than half of the votes. 'Texas is at a critical juncture in its long and proud history,' Mizani said. 'Now, more than ever, Texans deserve leaders with the experience and resolve necessary to offer solutions to the challenges we face.' The mayor's announcement for candidacy comes within two weeks of Wambsganss's, when Texas Rep. Nate Schatzline withdrew. 'My #1 goal was for SD9 to be represented by a true conservative, & with Leigh Wambsganss, that's exactly what you'll get,' Schatzline said in his June 27 post on X. 'She has my full support.' A day after Wambsganss entered the race, Mizani told his social media following that he was giving prayerful consideration to running. 'Senate District 9 is the Republican lifeblood of Tarrant County—our voters deserve a strong and principled conservative that is only beholden to the interests of the people of SD9 and not the whims and wills of the Austin political machine,' Mizani said in the June 28 post. As Keller's mayor, Mizani said he has been just that. 'Simply put, this campaign will be motivated by my family and yours, guided by our shared conservative values, and focused on offering solutions to the challenges we face as Texans,' Mizani said. As mayor of Keller, Mizani has been an outspoken supporter of Gov. Greg Abbott, the county commissioners redistricting and the near-split of Keller ISD. Mizani has less than a year remaining on his three-year term. He was first elected mayor in 2020 after serving as a city council member from 2014-18.


Politico
28 minutes ago
- Politico
Senate Judiciary eyes next week for votes on two contentious judicial nominees
House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington says Republicans shouldn't give up on advancing certain priorities that were cut out of their 'big, beautiful bill' for not complying with Senate rules, telling reporters Tuesday that lawmakers will try again in follow-up budget reconciliation packages. 'There may be a longer list of things that were kicked out by the Senate parliamentarian as non-compliant with the Byrd rule — I think we should make another run at that and look for ways to structure the provisions so that it's more fundamentally budgetary in impact and policy,' the Texas Republican said during the press call Tuesday afternoon. 'I suspect that's why they were kicked out.' The so-called Byrd rule limits what provisions can be included in a bill moving through Congress through the reconciliation process, which allows lawmakers to skirt the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate. Arrington specifically pointed to one provision stripped in the Senate from the House-passed megabill that would have prohibited Medicaid coverage for gender affirming surgeries, and another that would have banned noncitizens from tapping into Medicaid resources. 'I think those — we need to spend more time' crafting the provisions to pass muster with the parliamentarian, Arrington said. 'I don't think we spent enough time to look for a pathway to success on them, and that's sort of the landscape, as I see it, of the opportunities in another reconciliation bill.' Echoing Speaker Mike Johnson 's recent comments, Arrington said he suspects GOP leaders will attempt to do two more party-line packages in the 119th Congress, with the next one slated for the fall. Arrington added members would likely demand that those additional measures be drafted under circumstances where both chambers adhere to the same budget framework, avoiding a repeat of the most recent scenario where House and Senate Republicans each gave their committees different deficit reduction targets. He lamented the fact that the Senate did not comply with the House's aggressive instructions for writing iits version of the megabill, but credited fiscal hawks for helping secure $1.5 trillion in savings in a final product, and noted that it was not 'feasible' to expect the full magnitude of cost savings would be acheived in a single reconciliation bill — 'politically, at least.' As it currently stands, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law over the weekend, is 'front loaded with costs and back-end loaded with savings,' which Arrington said should compel Republicans to make sure the administration follows through in 'mak[ing] sure the savings actually happen.' 'That was a concern among conservative budget hawks,' Arrington said. 'When I think about the Budget Committee's role going forward, one of the things that we need to do … is keep the pressure on the Senate, on the House and the administration to be diligent in implementation and enforcement.'

an hour ago
EU migration delegation ordered deported from eastern Libya on alleged entry violations
CAIRO -- CAIRO (AP) — Authorities in eastern Libya refused entry to three European ministers and the EU commissioner for migration on alleged entry violations, apparently after they stopped first in the rival Libyan capital of Tripoli in the west. A statement from the prime minister of the eastern part of Libya, Osama Hammad, said the interior ministers of Italy, Greece, Malta and the EU migration commissioner, Magnus Brunner, were 'persona non-grata' after they were denied entry shortly after their arrival in Benghazi. It said the ministers had entered illegally and had not followed Libyan diplomatic conventions. The ministers were in 'flagrant contravention of established diplomatic norms and international conventions, and through actions that demonstrably disregard Libyan national sovereignty, as well as in violation of Libyan domestic laws,' the statement said. The delegations 'are urged to engage with the Libyan Government in accordance with the principle of reciprocity, as enshrined in international agreements, treaties, and diplomatic custom,' it added. In addition to Brunner, the delegation included Greek Migration and Asylum Minister Thanos Plevris, Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi and Maltese Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri. The delegation was visiting Libya seeking tougher migration measures against boats carrying migrants from Libya. The EU has spent years and millions of euros trying to stem the people smuggling operations that have thrived in Libya's lawlessness and brought hundreds of thousands of desperate people to European shores. Libya plunged into chaos after a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. In the chaos that followed, the country split, with rival administrations in the east and west backed by rogue militias and foreign governments. Currently, Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah heads the internationally recognized government in the capital of Tripoli in the west while Hammad heads the administration in the east, where the powerful military commander Khalifa Hifter continues to also hold sway. The EU delegation had met first with Dbeibah, and the deportation incident was apparently caused because the European delegation stopped first in Tripoli, said Greek Deputy Prime Minister Kostis Hadzidakis. Usually foreigners including diplomats coordinate with both administrations if they want to visit western and eastern Libya. Speaking to state-run ERT television in Greece, Hadzidakis said the Tripoli meeting went ahead as planned. 'However, in Benghazi —perhaps because the visit to Tripoli came first — the Benghazi government decided it would not receive the European Commissioner and the three ministers. I don't think that was a constructive move, especially given that the European Union is genuinely trying to find a solution to this very unusual situation — just as it has tried with our other southern and eastern neighbors — on a complex issue like migration." For southern and eastern Libya, which are under the control of Hifter's forces, visitors have to coordinate and get permits from the east-based government, which is allied with Hifter. It's not clear if such permits were sought or granted. In Italy, opposition lawmakers who have criticized the hard-line stance against migration of the government of Premier Giorgia Meloni were quick to point out the irony that her migration minister was deported from a country on alleged immigration violations. 'Piantedosi was turned back from Libya because he was accused of illegal entry,' Democratic Party lawmaker Matteo Orfini wrote on Facebook. 'I was thinking of an ironic comment but I'd say that's good as is.'