Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is back in Washington this week, after taking a trip to Cancun in the middle of the winter storm.
“It was obviously a mistake. If we look at what happened in the state of Texas last week, we had not one but two serious winter storms hit back to back and the consequence of that is about 4 million Texans across the state lost power," Cruz said. "Heidi and I were among them and we lost power at our home for about two days."
Cruz said his daughters asked to go away with friends to somewhere warm, and he and his wife agreed to take them.
Get DFW local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC DFW newsletters.
“In doing that we were trying to be good parents and we were trying to take care of our kids, but it was a mistake, and it became something really that distracted from the focus that was my focus, and needed to be the focus across the state which is, 'Why did so many Texans lose power?' And 'What do we need to do to make sure that it does not happen again?” Cruz said.
The decision to leave during the storm caused a firestorm of controversy. Cruz said that his original "plan had been to stay the weekend with the family." He ultimately returned the morning after he arrived.
But Cruz said he is focused on trying to move forward, including trying to figure out what went wrong.
Politics
Politics from around the world.
He said the need to investigate what happened with the power grid, that it was not able to be resilient.
“I am hearing from Texans all over the state who are frustrated, who are angry that Texas, the energy capital of the world, the greatest state in the greatest country on earth, that we couldn’t keep our lights on, that we couldn’t keep our heat on," he said. "That is frankly embarrassing for the state and it is a regulatory failure on the state level that needs to be fixed."
Click here to listen to the latest episode of the Lone Star Politics Podcast.
