A House Democrat accused a Republican rival of "living the good life" on donor money after her campaign reported Disney World spending, and she was allegedly seen returning from the theme park around the same time.
But Democratic Texas Rep. Vicente Gonzalez's own records show nearly $20,000 in campaign spending around the same time on international and domestic trips with his wife, including his own visit to Disney World, a five-star hotel stay on the beach in the UAE and a Michelin-starred restaurant bill in Zurich.
Gonzalez made the jab at Republican Mayra Flores in October 2025, months after posting photos documenting his own two-day Disney World trip with his wife and several other associates on social media in April. The social media posts coincided with payments Gonzalez's campaign made to the Florida theme park and resort around the same time, totaling more than $1,100.
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The Disney payments and photos were just one piece of a broader travel and hospitality spending trail from Gonzalez’s campaign reviewed by Fox News Digital. His campaign reported thousands of dollars in expenses at upscale restaurants and hotels from Washington and Texas, to California and Europe, alongside campaign spending on multiple overseas trips during which Gonzalez's wife accompanied, or appeared to accompany, the congressman, according to posts Gonzalez shared on social media.
During one 2024 trip to the UAE that utilized campaign funds and coincided with social media posts in the same location posted on Gonzalez's Facebook, more than $13,000 in airfare and hotel expenses were spent. Gonzalez described apparent photos of the trip on social media as an "after campaign break," and his posts showed the congressman with his wife doing various sightseeing activities and one photo from a bed inside a top-floor luxury hotel room next to the beach.
The fifth-term Democrat representative is fighting to hold his South Texas seat against Republican Eric Flores in November after the GOP candidate defeated Mayra Flores and a crowded Republican field earlier this year. The race has drawn national attention as both parties battle for the district and Gonzalez enters the final stretch with a significant campaign cash advantage.
Gonzalez took aim at rival Mayra Flores in 2025, suggesting she was potentially using campaign funds to travel to Disney World with her kids. In an October 2025 social media post, Gonzalez shared a photo of her at Dallas Love Field Airport with two young family members, a Disney World bag and stuffed animals. Gonzalez captioned the photo "living the good life on donor's resources again" and cited a report that found payments to Disney World from her campaign around the same time as the photos.
But federal campaign finance records show Gonzalez's own campaign reported a combined $1,122.76 went to Walt Disney Resorts on March 24, 2025, and May 27, 2025, around the same time he posted photos on social media from a two-day trip to Walt Disney World with his own family on April 26, 2025.
"DC to Disney! What a fantastic 2 days," Gonzalez posted on Facebook alongside a photo of himself, his wife and several others.
Federal campaign finance rules do not prohibit campaigns from paying travel expenses simply because a candidate's spouse or children accompany them. The FEC allows campaign funds to cover travel for candidates, their spouses and minor children when the trip is directly related to campaign activity or the candidate's official responsibilities as a federal officeholder.
Campaign funds cannot, however, be used to pay for personal vacations or other family expenses that would have existed regardless of the candidate's campaign or official duties. When a trip mixes campaign or official business with personal activities, the campaign must be reimbursed for the costs attributable to the personal portion.
"Every dollar this campaign spends is legal and publicly disclosed, and these reports come straight from our own FEC filings," Gonzalez's campaign manager, Alex Philley, told Fox News Digital in a statement when asked about the campaign spending.
"The spending South Texans are worried about is their own on higher costs driven by Trump's agenda that Eric Flores would proudly rubber-stamp."
Gonzalez's FEC filings identify two $561.38 Disney payments, one from March 2025 and another from May 2025, only as "travel expenses," leaving unclear from the public disclosures what campaign or official activity the expenditures were connected to.
When asked specifically about this trip, Philley said it was tied to "a very important Financial Services trip" with Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., the Republican chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services, of which Gonzalez is a member.
Philley said the campaign's spending on international trips where Gonzalez's wife was present had been tied to official business as well, including a visit with the Pope, although he did not address each trip separately when asked about them.
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For example, Gonzalez traveled with his wife to Morocco in mid-2019 under the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act, or MECEA, which allows members of Congress to accept travel from foreign governments for approved cultural exchanges.
Campaigns are allowed to pay for their spouses to join them, but only if the spouse is performing bona fide official responsibilities. Diplomatic and ceremonial protocol for certain events or campaign office functions like managing travel logistics are often cited as reasons for why spouses need to attend.
Gonzalez's campaign reported paying $4,767.53 for his "spouse travel expense" in connection with the 2019 MECEA trip to Morocco, according to FEC records.
In December 2024, the campaign reported $12,810 to Emirates Airlines and $359.27 at a luxury five-star Abu Dhabi hotel called Emirates Towers in "officially connected" CODEL expenses. While the campaign funds for the trip did not explicitly name Gonzalez’s wife, photos from Gonzalez's social media page showed several images of him and his wife in Abu Dhabi around the same time as his campaign's payments, including a photo from the top floor of what appeared to be a luxury, beachfront hotel. The pair also appeared in photos exploring the city and sightseeing around the time of the payments.
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"Finally, an after campaign break!" Gonzalez captioned the photos, one of which showed him holding an exotic bird. Other photos posted around that time by Gonzalez's campaign page showed him visiting U.S. troops in the Middle East and meeting with other officials. Other photos showed Gonzalez and his wife at the "4th largest and most modern Mosque in the world" in Abu Dhabi.
The international travel continued in August 2025, when Gonzalez posted a photo with his wife in Zurich, Switzerland. Campaign records subsequently showed a $566.67 expense to Swiss Air and another $395 "Travel Expense" at La Rôtisserie in Zurich, a one-Michelin-star restaurant. The records did not explicitly indicate the expenses were used to pay for Gonzalez’s wife.
Weeks earlier, Gonzalez appeared to engage in international luxury travel paid for by his campaign. FEC records for Gonzalez's campaign reveal a $442.41 "Travel Expense" at the five-star luxury Parco dei Principi Grand Hotel in Rome the same week he posted a photo of himself on social media meeting with the Pope in 2025.
"This was not a vacation," Philley said in a statement to Fox News Digital about the trip. "You may want to ask the committee why they booked this hotel. This was not the congressman’s choice; he only had to pay for it."
Between 2024 and 2026, Gonzalez's campaign also reported thousands of dollars in expenditures at upscale restaurants, hotels and resorts around the country, including around $4,000 at The Capital Grille in Washington, D.C., along with spending at Eddie V's Prime Seafood in Houston and several other high-end D.C. restaurants.
Recently, Gonzalez's campaign reported a $1,019 expense at California's Ojai Valley Inn, a Forbes Travel Guide-recognized luxury resort sprawling across 220 acres with a spa, four pools and a championship-caliber golf course and more than $1,400 at Pennsylvania's Omni Bedford Springs Resort & Spa, an AAA Four Diamond property featuring a 30,000-square-foot spa, golf course and indoor and outdoor pools.
source https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dem-ripped-rivals-donor-fueled-good-life-dropped-campaign-cash-disney-spouse-travel
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