And so I changed my return flight, and I flew back on the first available flight.'Ĭruz said, 'It had been my intention to be able to work remotely to be on the phone to be on internet to be on zoom to be engaged, but I needed to be here.' And, frankly, leaving when so many Texans were hurting didn't feel right. 'Because on the one hand all of us who are parents have a responsibility to take care of our kids, take care of our families, that's something Texans have been doing across the state,' Cruz said.īut I also have a responsibility that I take very seriously of fighting for the state of Texas. 'We were trying to be good parents,' he added.Ĭruz said, 'I started having second thoughts' about the trip 'almost the moment I sat down on the plane.' His daughters eventually asked, 'How about we take a trip? Let's go somewhere where it's not so cold,' Cruz recounted. 'By the second day, we were clustered around the fireplace as the only source of heat,' Cruz said. 'The power went out as soon as we were sitting down to dinner,' he said. He said the past year had been tough on his children, as on other Americans, and that it got tougher earlier in the week when the family lost power after opening their home to some friends who had previously lost electrical power in their own houses. “Shameful!” Jackson Lee tweeted.Cruz said that his original 'plan had been to stay the weekend with the family.' Sheila Jackson Lee, a Houston Democrat who called it a “racial attack.” The tweet drew criticism, including from U.S. The GOP’s official Twitter account on Tuesday posted an image of Jackson with her initials “KBJ” crossed out and replaced by the letters “CRT.” “They don’t come up in my work as a judge, which I am respectfully here to address.”Ĭruz’s questioning came as Republicans began to carve out critical race theory as a key attack line against Jackson, whose nomination the party lacks the votes to block in the evenly split Senate. “I have not reviewed any of those books, any of those ideas,” Jackson said. Texas Take: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox

Pressed more broadly about her views of critical race theory, Jackson said her “understanding is that critical race theory is an academic theory that is about the ways in which race interacts with various institutions.” She also said the board of trustees has no say in the curriculum of the school and noted that it is a private school and every parent who chooses to send their child there does so willingly. The ideals of equality and justice are “at the core” of the school’s mission, she said. Jackson said the Georgetown Day School was founded in 1945, during a time of legal segregation, by a group of white Jewish parents and Black parents, who wanted their children to be able to attend school together. “Senator,” Jackson said, pausing for eight seconds before continuing: “I do not believe that any child should be made to feel as though they are racist or though they are not valued or though they are less than, that they are victims, that they are oppressors.

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“Do you agree with this book that is being taught to kids, that babies are racist?” Cruz asked. One portion of the book says babies are taught to be racist or antiracist, there is no neutrality.”Ĭruz said the book is taught to students in pre-K through second grade at Georgetown Day School. “There are portions of this book that I find really quite remarkable. “They include a book called ‘Antiracist Baby,’” Cruz said, flipping through a copy of the picture book as his staff displayed chart-sized copies behind him.

Ted cruz daughters photos