Ted Cruz Hasn’t Learned His Lesson on Fleeing Texas’s Cold Weather

Senator Ted Cruz appears to be leaving Texas yet again ahead of another major winter storm.

The third-term lawmaker was photographed boarding a flight to Laguna Beach, California, Tuesday, sparking concerns online that the lawmaker’s controversial history of ditching his constituents (and dog) amid bad weather was morphing into an inevitable bad habit.

Cruz’s office told Houston Public Media Wednesday, when the photo took off on social media, that he left on a work trip planned several weeks ago, and that he would be back in Texas before the storm arrived.

“Senator Cruz is currently on pre-planned work travel that was scheduled weeks in advance,” a spokesperson for Cruz said. “He will be back in Texas before the storm is projected to hit.”

Texas is gearing up for another potentially disastrous ice storm this week that is expected to batter the north and central regions of the state. Governor Greg Abbott preemptively declared a state of emergency to handle the imminent freeze, prompting state agencies to actively monitor Texas’s electrical grid and oil supplies.

When asked to confirm if Cruz had left for Laguna Beach, his spokesperson said: “You have the tweet with the pic.”

The scene is remarkably reminiscent of one of Cruz’s worst moments in 2021, when he bailed on his community—and his dog—to fly to Cancun during a historic winter storm that crashed Texas’s power grid, leaving millions without heat or electricity for several days.

But that wasn’t the only time Cruz was missing in action during a Lone Star State emergency. Last July, when floods killed at least 135 people in central Texas, Cruz was busy vacationing in Greece. He caught a flight back two days later, in what his office said was the “first flight home.”

The Trump administration is ordering active-duty military police soldiers to be ready to deploy to Minneapolis.

MS NOW, citing three unnamed sources, reports that an Army military police brigade unit stationed in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, was issued “prepare to deploy” orders Tuesday. At least a few hundred soldiers are now getting ready to potentially go to the city, which has been rocked by violence from federal agents following the killing of Renee Good by an ICE officer.

“We have nothing to announce at this time, and any tip about this is pre-decisional,” a Department of Defense official told MS NOW.

This latest order comes after news of another deployment from Friday. Two battalions of the Army’s 11th Airborne Division, stationed in Alaska and specially trained to operate in winter weather, were also issued orders to be ready to deploy. There are at least 500 soldiers in a battalion.

Last summer, the Trump administration deployed 700 active-duty Marines to Los Angeles, where they mostly guarded federal buildings, including an immigration detention center. That deployment was found to be illegal in federal court. If soldiers are deployed to Minneapolis, they would have to refrain from enforcing the law against civilians, otherwise they would be violating the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, as Trump was found to have done in Los Angeles.

President Trump has been simultaneously threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act and claiming that he doesn’t need to do so in order to use federal troops to put down what he sees as a “rebellion.” Either way, not only is he threatening the Constitution and the stability of the U.S., but he would also be following the example of a dictator, which, oddly enough, he just said he wants to be.

President Trump, who has a lengthy résumé of authoritarian tendencies, thinks that sometimes “you need a dictator.”

“We had a good speech, we got great reviews. I can’t believe it, we got good reviews on that speech,” Trump said on Wednesday, speaking of the long-winded, indignant, and incredibly boring address he gave earlier that day at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“Usually they say, ‘He’s a horrible dictator-type person,’ I’m a dictator,” Trump continued. “But sometimes you need a dictator! But they didn’t say that in this case.… It’s all based on common sense, it’s not conservative or liberal, or anything else.”

This kind of talk—which Trump has all but normalized—sheds further light on his aggressive, antagonistic approach to diplomacy, especially after he spent the morning threatening Europe, Canada, Greenland, and, bizarrely, Iceland.

“As I [have] always said, he is at his most honest when he is at his most malevolent and depraved,” George Conway commented on X.

Donald Trump’s Greenland fixation has frustrated Europeans enough that the European Parliament has suspended work on a trade deal with the United States.

The legislative body was looking at removing import duties against American goods, as part of an agreement made between the U.S. and the European Union over the summer at Trump’s golf course in Turnberry, Scotland. In order for the deal to be implemented, the Parliament and EU governments have to approve it, and the Parliament’s trade committee was going to vote on proposals on January 26 and 27.

But now, everything has been put on hold. The news came as Trump used his Wednesday speech at the World Economic Forum to triple down on his threat to seize Greenland (even though he mistook the territory for Iceland several times). Last week, Trump threatened to levy tariffs on eight European allies that oppose the U.S. annexing Greenland.

The deal was already facing some opposition over the fact that it favors the U.S., as the EU would be dropping most of its tariffs while the U.S. would keep a base rate of 15 percent. However, it was on track to be approved with conditions, including an 18-month sunset clause and the ability to respond to any surges in American imports.

Trump has refused to hear any reason on Greenland, telling reporters Wednesday, “You’ll find out,” when asked how far he is willing to go to take over the territory. Not only is a trade deal stalled, but European pension funds in Denmark and Sweden are exiting U.S. Treasuries. With Europe beginning to respond with economic measures against the U.S, will Trump budge at all on Greenland, or double down on his tariffs?

At least one person has been absolutely thrilled by Donald Trump’s recent push to acquire Greenland: Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The U.S. leader’s relentless quest to annex the Danish-controlled territory has put America at odds with some of its strongest allies. Over the long weekend, Trump announced a new wave of retaliatory tariffs against European countries that oppose his Greenland takeover, cautioning other NATO members against participation in a joint military exercise on the island.

That sparked a celebration in Moscow, which has worked for decades to dismantle the European-friendly intergovernmental military alliance.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov acknowledged Tuesday that NATO was in “deep crisis,” a reality that he said he couldn’t have previously imagined, reported The Wall Street Journal. Lavrov also rejected Trump’s warnings that Russia would attempt to occupy Greenland if the U.S. did not do so, telling the paper that the Kremlin had no such plans.

Trump has claimed that America “needs” Greenland “for defense.” But what exactly the White House stands to gain from controlling Greenland isn’t clear, especially in light of the fact that myriad existing treaties already give the U.S. unfettered access to Greenland as a military base.

NATO, which currently encompasses 32 member nations, has practically defined world order and global trade since the end of World War II. Originally formed to defend against the threats of the Soviet Union, the alliance has since morphed into a powerful collective bloc that has both weakened Russia and diminished European defenses (in exchange for American nuclear protection) as the largest peacetime military alliance in world history.

Much to the chagrin of defense strategists, Trump has proved a vocal critic of the Western military and trade alliance, repeatedly insisting that the Unites States has gotten a bad deal, in which it gives more than it receives.

“It’s a five alarm emergency that’s dividing North America from Europe,” John Foreman, a former U.K. defense attaché in Moscow and Kyiv, told the Journal. “Russia must be sitting back thinking Christmas just keeps coming.”

Power players in Moscow have definitely taken notice of Trump’s efforts, opting to encourage the U.S. leader rather than dissuade him. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rubbed Trump’s ego earlier this week, claiming that Greenland’s annexation would “undoubtedly go down in the history books.”

“And not only in the history of the United States, but in world history,” Peskov said.

The vast majority of the American public opposes Trump’s proposed northern expansion. A YouGov survey published Tuesday found that 72 percent of polled voters do not support a military takeover of Greenland. Even Republicans were far less likely to support the measure, with 52 percent opposed compared to 22 percent in favor—a detail not lost on The Drudge Report, the most heavily trafficked conservative news aggregator, which chose to lead its site Wednesday with the Journal’s report.