TED Cruz allegedly ignored a warning from his daughters' school that students should avoid traveling internationally because they would have to quarantine upon return – and other parents are furious.
Just weeks before the Texas Senator embarked on his controversial Cancun trip to escape the state's devastating winter storm, the elite private school attended by his two daughters emailed parents about international travel.
The notice warned that St. John’s School students who travel internationally must quarantine for 7 to 10 days upon their return, as per CDC guidelines.
The email, sent on January 30, also advised that online learning would not be available to students in quarantine, Politico reports.
It came after two classes at the school were forced to promptly quarantine because students attended holiday parties that led to multiple Covid-positive infections.
The incident created a divide between the parents and students who followed the safety guidelines and those who flouted them —a microcosm of the broader societal conflict that plays out daily across the nation.
“At the end of the day, he’s taking this heat for using his children as an excuse for taking a vacation. And that’s a mistake,” Lara Hollingsworth, a parent of three kids at the school told Politico.
“From a parent standpoint, all I’m asking is the school follow the CDC guidelines, and I need to say I have no reason to believe they won’t.”
A Cruz spokesman said the senator’s “daughters plan to follow the St. John’s policy.”
Another parent, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, described Cruz's trip as "enraging".
“It’s enraging to see this politician go out of the country like this and there’s a concern that he would be putting the school at risk if he was trying to sneak out,” the source said.
“There are just a huge number of people who are very angry at Ted Cruz, like most people in the United States.”
Cruz is under fire for abandoning his constituents during a deadly winter storm – as he and the rest of the family jetted off to Cancun.
The senator has faced intense backlash for taking the trip but claimed that he was merely acting as an escort for his pre-teen daughters and friends – noting that, like millions of his fellow Texans, his family had lost heat and water.
Ted Cruz’s wife, Heidi, and the couple's two daughters, aged 10 and 12, continued to soak up the sun in balmy Cancun on Friday after the Republican senator returned home in response to public outcry.
After dashing to a luxury resort in Mexico, Cruz landed back in Texas on Thursday and had a police escort at the airport, where protesters held signs stating "24 dead" from the winter storm.
Speaking to reporters outside his house, Cruz admitted he made a mistake and insisted he was "just trying to be a dad."
"It was obviously a mistake and in hindsight I wouldn't have done it," Cruz said.
"I was trying to be a dad and all of us have made decisions – when you've got two girls who have been cold for two days, and haven't had heat or power, and they are saying: 'Look, we don't have school, why don't we go, let's get out of here," he said.
Asked directly what he was thinking, Cruz replied: "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."
The senator later expressed his regret as text messages obtained by The Sun emerged showing his wife Heidi planning the Cancun trip to escape the bitterly cold weather in Texas.
Source: Read Full Article
