FEMA Alerts Keep Interrupting Ted Cruz During Senate Hearing

Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, faced an unexpected interruption during a Senate hearing on Wednesday, October 4, 2023. As he was questioning a witness, his phone started to emit a loud and persistent noise that turned out to be a FEMA alert. The alert was part of a nationwide test of the emergency alert system, which sends messages to phones, radios, and TVs in case of a major disaster or threat. Cruz tried to silence his phone, but the alert kept going off, causing laughter and amusement among the senators and the audience. Cruz joked that he was “glad to see FEMA is so on top of things“ and asked the witness to “forgive the distraction“. The witness, who was the president of a broadband company, replied that he was “happy to see that the system worked“. Cruz then resumed his questioning, but the alert went off again, prompting more laughter and another apology from Cruz. The incident was captured on video and quickly went viral on social media, with many peo