now senator ted cruz tonight is facing
the
ire of the mob the media for traveling
to cancun mexico with his daughters
to drop them off and come home as texas
is still addressing the fallout
and damage from severe weather now in
response senator cruz tonight did say
in retrospect he might have made a
mistake adding in a statement
in part wanting to be a good dad i flew
down with them
last night and i'm flying right back
this afternoon and he did
my staff and i are in constant
communication with state local leaders
to get to the bottom of what happened in
texas
joining us now to talk about it is texas
senator ted cruz
i have a piece of this story that nobody
knows that you know to be true and
governor abbott knows to be true
and that is i got contact very early in
the week from
the official meteorologist on my radio
show
joe bastardi frequent guest on this
program at weatherbell.com
and he sent a note to both of you to you
and governor
abbott in that note he said this is
going to be far worse than i think
others are predicting you got in touch
with him the governor got in touch with
him
you took it seriously and you worked
hand-in-hand with the governor
in the lead up to this knowing this was
all a big possibility
and this is days before that happened
and you were fully and completely
engaged and i know that
from my own reporting and my own
conversations with you and governor
abbott and with joe bastardi
um now you went and you took your
daughters to cancun and you came back
i think you can be a father and be the
senator of texas
all at the same time and make a round
trip quick drop-off trip and come home
well sean that's right and and starting
with what you
opened with you you connected me with
joe early on before these storms
actually even hit
the state of texas and and i got gotta
say i uh you called me and told me joe
was very impressive he knew his stuff
and i called him that evening and spent
significant time on the phone with him
talking through
what he saw coming and he was predicting
not one but two
major winter storms the combination of
which he believed would have an impact
on texas that would exceed
anything we've seen in this state since
1899.
and and i thought it was a very
impressive and very serious he sent me
charts and data on what was coming
and and you reached out and i reached
out to governor abbott and said listen
this guy
knows his stuff and you ought to talk to
him and we help connect them
and you know at the same time governor
abbott had already declared
a an emergency in all 254 counties
uh all across texas and and so i joined
with john cornyn
in urging joe biden to declare a federal
disaster
uh to mirror the governor's request
which president biden to his credit did
and so that was early on right before
these storms came
we knew they were they were serious this
week has been
hell for the state of texas it has been
two storms on top of each other
four million texans lost power no power
no lights
many with no water it has been
frustrating i'll tell you sean a lot of
texans are mad or
pissed off how could it be that texas
the energy capital of the world can't
turn our lights on and can't heat our
homes a lot of texans are frustrated
this shouldn't have happened i'll tell
you heidi and me
we lost power for two days our house was
dark we had no heat
actually the fireplace behind me we were
all huddled around the fireplace
because it was the only heat in the
house and and after
a couple of days after the girls being
really cold at being in the teens
and the 20s outside uh our girl's ass
said look
school's been canceled for the week can
can we take a trip
and go somewhere warm and and heidi and
i as parents we
we said okay sure and so last night i
flew down with them
uh to the beach uh and then i flew back
this afternoon i'd initially planned to
stay
through the weekend and to work remotely
there but but as i
as i was heading down there you know i
started to have second thoughts
almost immediately because the crisis
here in texas
you need to be here on the ground and as
much as you can do by phone
and zoom it's not the same as being here
and so i returned this afternoon and i'm
here working
to make sure to do everything we can to
get the power turned on but also
fundamentally
to ask the questions why did this happen
why was the texas grid which
which is regulated at the state level
it's operated at the state level it's
not a federal function
it's a state function but why was the
grid
not sufficiently prepared so that four
million texans lost
heat and power we need to answer that
and we need to make sure
it never happens again in the state of
texas to what extent now texas is very
unique in that there's no federal
control authority over their energy grid
it's separate and apart which
for a lot of different reasons is very
good for texas
um as as you do not have to abide by the
burdens and regulations of the federal
government
very smart on texas in part uh and
and i'm i think that's brilliant well i
don't know i'm not really sure i thought
we learned during covert
that teleschool telemedicine teleworking
zoom calls all this other stuff
changed the way we do everything now i'm
not assuming that the people attack with
all the
the natural resources of texas
why is texas relying on wind turbine
turbines which by the way is use it or
lose it you can't store that energy
and and why in that sense
isn't it upgraded to what works now now
eventually if it works and
texas chooses that i'm an all the above
guy but for now
oil gas and coal are our main sources of
energy and nuclear energy
if people would let us use it well i i
think you said it right which is that we
should use
all of the above in texas texas is the
number one producer of wind energy in
the country more than california
about 25 percent of our electricity
comes from wind and that that's a
valuable asset
my view is we ought to be using all the
energy sources but we shouldn't have
mandates
we shouldn't be subsidizing any we
should let the market decide the
consumers decide right now
we don't have clear answers as to why
the texas energy grid couldn't handle
this surge in the winter obviously a
massive surge like this
is very unusual in texas it appears
there were a combination of factors one
factor
is a substantial number of the wind
turbines froze
and and ceased producing energy now
elsewhere other colder climates you're
able to
put treatments and lubricants on on wind
turbines so they can operate in the cold
but in texas that wasn't predicted to
happen and so they didn't do that we saw
a huge drop off
in energy from wind we also saw
substantial drop-offs from coal
substantial drop-offs from natural gas
substantial drop-offs from solar
what we need to do is have a serious
fact-based investigation not based on
politics
not based on the green new deal and
where you are on this policy or the
other
it needs to be based on the evidence
based on the facts to say what happened
why was the grid not there most of these
shutdowns
were mandated because there wasn't the
power and so they just shut whole
neighborhoods down
you know we had tuesday night we had a
bunch of kids at our house because our
house was one of the few houses that had
power and so we had
a lot of our daughter's friends were
over we're making dinner for the boom
the lights go out and we lose power
and so we had a candlelight dinner
because that's all we had we had
flashlights and then the girls all
camped out they got in sleeping bags and
wrapped up in in uh in comforters and
everything but it got cold i mean it was
in in the 30s in the house
uh as it got cold and it stayed with no
power for two days that was because
the power generation in the grid
couldn't meet the demands
and so they took whole streets and whole
neighborhoods offline
that should not happen again it
certainly shouldn't happen
in texas you know other states you look
at a state like california
where they have rolling brown outs
predictably year after year after year
it's a failure of the system and it's a
failure the government regulators are
causing part of the reasons
texans are so pissed is this shouldn't
happen in texas
and i'll tell you this we're going to
fix it the state of texas better fix it
governor abbott was right
when he called on the state legislature
to investigate
why the grid wasn't ready and to make
sure this
never happens again in the state of
texas yeah i didn't see much criticism
there early lid that joe biden put on
things
while the people in texas you could use
federal help
but there's always that double standard
you made the right call coming back
you also can be a father there's also
something called technology
we also know what teleworking is and i
think there's a lot of sanctimony and
politics being played in this attack and
i look governor perry made me an
honorary texan
that's why i made the call to you and
governor abbott i feel a responsibility
for
americans that actually uh don't hate me
like the state i'm living in new york uh
anyway welcome home senator and uh
all the best to our friends in texas and
hopefully we get this fixed soon
all right speaking