Just days after Sen. Ted Cruz ditched Texas during a deadly winter storm for the sandy beaches of Cancun, Mexico, the Republican made light of the scandal while also warming up the audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando with a transphobic joke. “I gotta say, Orlando is awesome.
It’s not as nice as Cancun, but it’s nice,” Cruz joked during his bizarre speech, titled “Bill of Rights, Liberty, and Cancel Culture.” The joke comes as Texas is still reeling from the unprecedented storm that left millions of residents without power and water for days and killed at least 30 people.
Cruz then insisted that people should “lighten up”—before making a transphobic joke about a New York Times story that said 60 percent of