Cruz to Jeffries: Democrats’ El Salvador Trip Was ‘Astonishingly Bad Politics’

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) called out House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) for supporting the four House Democrats who flew to El Salvador to advocate for the return of deported accused MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia, telling him to “keep up” the “astonishingly bad politics.”

After Jeffries refused to answer whether Reps. Maxwell Frost (D-FL), Robert Garcia (D-CA), Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ), and Maxine Dexter’s (D-OR) recent vacation to the Latin American country was a “mistake” on Tuesday, the Texas Republican blasted him on X:

“Hakeem, allowing your members to fly to El Salvador on the taxpayers dime to play footsie with violent gang members was obviously astonishingly bad politics,” said Cruz. 

“Please, keep it up,” he added, along with a pair of laughing emojis.

In response, Jeffries brought up Cruz’s 2021 Cancun, Mexico vacation while his home state was experiencing power outages and water shortages amid severe winter weather:

“This from someone who abandoned his state during a historic winter storm to vacation in Cancun. Nobody takes you seriously at this point,” the New York Democrat remarked.

“And that’s Leader Jeffries to you, Edward,” he added, using Cruz’s middle name in his retort.

At the time of the initial backlash following his family trip to Cancun, Cruz admitted that it “was a mistake” and said he wanted to take his two young daughters “somewhere warm” as their home was one of the many that lost power, water, and heat.

“Look, in hindsight, if I had understood how it would be perceived, the reaction people would have, obviously I wouldn’t have done it. It was a mistake,” the senator told ABC 13, adding that he experienced second thoughts when he boarded the plane.

“As a leader, you need to be here, and you need to be here when Texans were hurting, and that’s why I didn’t feel good about it even as we were heading out,” Cruz continued. “I knew why we said yes, but I was thinking it was a mistake almost from the outset, and then as I saw the firestorm that erupted that made it even more clear that I needed to be here.”

Cruz’s social media team made fun of Jeffries’ self-important “Leader Jeffries” line in response:

Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.