Ted Cruz admits ‘I’ve got no defence’ over tweets mocking California power cuts

Texas senator Ted Cruz said he has “no defence” for his earlier tweets mocking a California power outage after the power grid failed in his own state, leaving millions of people in the dark following a deadly snowstorm.

In earlier tweets that resurfaced after the power cut in Texas, the Republican senator had taken a dig at Democrats over California’s power cuts last summer, alleging that it was a failure of the administration.

“California is now unable to perform even basic functions of civilisation, like having reliable electricity,” he tweeted last August, responding to a message from the California governor’s office that urged residents in the state to conserve energy during a heatwave as the state experienced power blackouts.

“Biden/Harris/AOC want to make CA’s failed energy policy the standard nationwide. Hope you don’t like air conditioning!” he said.

The posts have been widely shared during the current power crisis in Texas, and Mr Cruz finally responded to the criticism on Twitter saying: “I got no defence. A blizzard strikes Texas & our state shuts down. Not good. Stay safe!”

Texas has been struggling in the dark since Monday in the midst of a freezing winter storm, that has left at least 23 dead as part of severe weather across the country.

Several parts of the US are witnessing historically low temperatures, which in Texas’s case added immense pressure to the electricity infrastructure leading to a power grid failure. Most deaths attributed to the storm have been recorded in Texas, Louisiana, Kentucky, North Carolina and Missouri.

As of Thursday, nearly 3.4 million people were still without electricity, and some also lost water services. Questions are also being raised about why the administration was ill-equipped to deal with a storm. 

Texas officials have urged 7 million people — a quarter of the population of the nation’s second-largest state — to boil tap water before drinking it following days of record low temperatures that damaged infrastructure and froze pipes, according to the Associated Press.