February 18, 2021

Ted Cruz’s Text Messages Just Got Leaked

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

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We’ve got some backstory on Sen. Ted Cruz’s direct-flight jaunt to a Ritz-Carlton in Cancun while his constituents cling to life. The New York Times published moments ago revealing family text messages leaked to the paper and deserving of a read, if you can stomach it. The texts fly in the face of what he’d said publicly. Here’s my colleague Inae Oh on what he had swore he was up to:

In a statement that appeared to justify his travel amid twin crises—the ongoing pandemic and Texas’ devastating winter storms—as an effort to placate his daughters, Ted Cruz has finally confirmed his trip to Cancun. “With school canceled for the week, our girls asked us to take a trip with friends,” the Texas senator wrote. “Wanting to be a good dad, I flew down with them last night and am flying back this afternoon. My staff are in constant communication with state and local leaders to get to the bottom of what happened in Texas.”

The text messages reveal something, well, different. From the Times:

Text messages sent from Ms. Cruz to friends and Houston neighbors on Wednesday revealed a hastily planned trip. Their house was “FREEZING,” as Ms. Cruz put it—and she proposed a getaway until Sunday. Ms. Cruz invited others to join them at the Ritz-Carlton in Cancún, where they had stayed “many times,” noting the room price this week ($309 per night) and its good security. The text messages were provided to The New York Times and confirmed by a second person on the thread, who declined to be identified because of the private nature of the texts.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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