Did Ted Cruz say "I'll believe in climate change when Texas freezes over"? No, that's not true: There's no evidence the Texas senator ever said that. The source for the claim is a fake tweet, made to look like it's from Cruz. The tweet is not on Cruz's verified accounts, nor could it be found on a website that tracks and archives public officials' deleted tweets.
The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) published on February 19, 2021. The post appeared to be a screenshot of a tweet from Cruz. His purported tweet read:
I'll believe in climate change when Texas freezes over.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Fri Feb 19 20:53:46 2021 UTC)
Lead Stories conducted searches of Cruz's verified Twitter accounts and found no tweet like the one referenced in the post. You can look at his accounts here and here.
We also did a search on Politwoops, a website that tracks and archives public officials' deleted tweets. It did not turn up the alleged tweet.
Two elements may be driving the virality of this fake tweet about Cruz: He was widely criticized for taking a family trip to Mexico during the February, 2021 freeze-up in Texas. He later admitted it was a mistake to leave his constituents behind during a weather crisis. Also, climate activists target Cruz because he has denied the climate is changing and has resisted government action to reverse the effects, calling them a power-grab by statist politicians.
See here and here for previous Lead Stories fact-checks related to the deadly storm of February 2021.
