- Ted Cruz’s Cancún Trip: Family Texts Detail His Political Blunder (New York Times) – The Texas senator faced fierce blowback for fleeing his state as a disaster unfolded. Text messages sent by his wife on Wednesday revealed a hastily planned trip away from their “FREEZING” family home.
- Cruz calls Cancun, Mexico, trip ‘a mistake’ as Texans remain without power amid historic winter storm (CNN) – A source familiar with the situation told CNN that some of the senator’s senior aides did not know he flew down to Mexico until the pictures appeared on social media and inquiries started to come into the office.
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Raises $1 Million For Texas Relief In Just Four Hours (Unilad) – The money raised is going to 5 Texas nonprofits providing food and shelter during this week’s killer storm.
- Biden repudiates Trump on Iran, ready for talks on nuke deal (Associated Press) – In addition to signaling a willingness to talk with Iran, the administration also reversed Trump’s determination that all U.N. sanctions against Iran had been restored. And, it eased stringent restrictions on the domestic travel of Iranian diplomats posted to the United Nations.
- Ted Cruz is quickly finding out his trip to Cancun really, really wasn’t worth it (The Independent) – After hours of silence and speculation, the Texas Senator released a statement today saying he was just ‘trying to be a good dad’.
- House’s No. 2 Republican drops by Mar-a-Lago amid GOP divide over Trump (CNN) – Rep. Steve Scalise, the No. 2 House Republican, privately met with former President Donald Trump in Florida earlier this week.
- US signals it is open to sending more troops to support NATO’s mission in Iraq (CNN) – “The US is participating in the force generation process for NATO Mission Iraq and will contribute its fair share to this important expanded mission,” Pentagon spokesperson Cmdr. Jessica L. McNulty said.
- Gavel in hand, Bernie Sanders lays out an unabashedly liberal economic agenda (Washington Post) – As the new chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Sanders has already played a key role in advancing President Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package, and he is now scheduling high-profile hearings on some of the nation’s most pressing challenges.
- Democratic Lawmakers Introduce Biden’s Immigration Overhaul in House (New York Times) – Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Representative Linda Sánchez of California disclosed details of the proposal on Thursday in a news conference.
- Biden’s Plan to Link Arms With Europe Against Russia and China Isn’t So Simple (New York Times) – The new president’s vow to restore the trans-Atlantic alliance is welcome, but Europeans want a more balanced relationship, with more dialogue and less diktat.
- Massive breach fuels calls for US action on cybersecurity (AP) – A sweeping hack that may have revealed government and corporate secrets to Russia and which hijacked widely used software from Texas-based SolarWinds Inc., has exposed the profound vulnerability of civilian government networks and the limitations of efforts to detect threats.
