TMZ roasts Ted Cruz over Florida trip during shutdown: 'It ain't Cancun, but it's close'

TMZ tracked down Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Tuesday traveling to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, the latest politician traveling and enjoying spring break as the government shutdown hits its seventh week.

The outlet has been reporting on lawmakers who have fled Washington, D.C. while tens of thousands of federal workers have gone unpaid.

Cruz was the latest lawmaker spotted on vacation, and TMZ called him out for "hopscotching around the country" after his CPAC appearance — and his previous exits amid crises, including the time in 2021 when he left Texas during a deadly winter storm that led to power outages and water shortages in his state.

"It ain't Cancun, but it's close..." TMZ reported.

A new NOTUS report on Tuesday revealed why the outlet has a "new obsession" with exposing vacationing lawmakers, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who was spotted having a “grand ol’ time” at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, and sporting a bubble wand as he strolled through the “Tangled” section of the park.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Cruz were also spotted boarding a plane on Friday heading out of D.C., and Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) was spotted at a casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-WY) was also “caught getting the hell out of D.C. amid the federal government shutdown,” TMZ reported.

TMZ has planned to keep it up.

“It outraged us so much we wanted to use our platforms to show how Congress – Dems AND Republicans – have betrayed us,” TMZ executive producer Harvey Levin told NOTUS in a statement.

“We spontaneously came up with the idea to juxtapose members of Congress on their Spring Break against federal workers who are losing their homes, their cars, their livelihoods. Short story – our DC presence will sometimes be fun, sometimes intensely serious.”