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.

    • AdamEatsAss@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      They bought a lot of the local radio stations where I live and now they all suck. I live in Philly and used to love 104.5, one of the things they were known for was no morning show, they just played music during peoples commute. Now it’s the god awful iHeartRadio woody morning show.

    • dunidane@lemmy.sdf.org
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      7 months ago

      Its crazy how the same corporation supports shit stains like Cruz also runs Cool Zone Media that has Behind the Bastards and It could Happen here both of which are way to the left for an American audience.