The Texas senator may have violated campaign finance law with his podcast.
Ted Cruz’s podcast may be crossing some major lines.
The Campaign Legal Center, or CLC, a nonprofit organization, filed a complaint against the Texas senator on Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission. The watchdog group argues that the Verdict With Ted Cruz podcast can’t send its profits to a super PAC that supports Cruz’s campaign.
Cruz’s podcast, produced with iHeartMedia, generates hundreds of thousands of dollars, and may be a lucrative loophole in campaign finance law since he’s making the money himself. But, as The Daily Beast found, it raises a number of legal and ethical issues.
For one, campaign finance records show that at least seven lobbyists registered to represent iHeartMedia’s interests have donated tens of thousands of dollars to Cruz’s campaign since the podcast launched in 2022, The Daily Beast reports. Cruz and iHeartMedia claim that he doesn’t get paid for the podcast, volunteering his time instead, so the money is reported as “digital revenue” from ads on the podcast.
I’d love for rules to start applying to Republicans.
But I won’t hold my breath.
Cruz recently won a scotus case where they decided that you can donate an unlimited amount of money to a campaign After an election is over.
The courts are going to continue allowing himself to funnel money to campaigns.