Being a politician has become a stepping stone on the true path to power, not the presidency, but that of the podcaster. In recent years, Matt Gaetz, Thomas Massie, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and even Nancy Mace have all taken up podcasting as their career alternative to politics. Surprisingly, the original politician-podcaster was Senator Ted Cruz, who hosts Verdict, which is a top 50 political podcast. The show is cohosted by Ben Ferguson, a Republican political commentator and longtime radio host. On YouTube, Verdict receives under ten thousand views for most videos with breakout exceptions, like a recent Clarence Thomas interview. Such viewership might beg the question of whether the podcast is worth the time of a sitting senator.
Evidently, the answer might be simple: money. Not from podcasting, but through political donations. The outlet Responsible Statecraft recently published an article entitled, “Israel is sponsoring ads on Ted Cruz’s podcast. Is that legal?” Responsible Statecraft is a center-left leaning outlet funded by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, an anti-war think tank. The article’s authors are Connor Echols and Nick Cleveland-Stout, with the former having done work at The Intercept while the latter is a research fellow.
Radio and podcast giant iHeartMedia has syndicated Cruz’s show, “Verdict with Ted Cruz,” since 2022. Because of lobbying-related restrictions, the company cannot legally pay the senator for ad revenue. But, it turns out, that’s not the only way to ensure the money benefits Cruz.
Under an unusual licensing deal, iHeartMedia agreed to donate revenue “associated with (the show’s) advertising sales” to the Truth and Courage PAC, a super PAC dedicated to “ensuring that Ted Cruz is re-elected to the United States Senate.” The company has given at least $1,738,000 of “digital revenue” to the Truth and Courage PAC since 2023, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
The world of podcasting will be increasingly susceptible to these types of arrangements as super chats can be used to launder money while live reads are a means of kickbacks and political patronage. Verdict ups the ante by using the distributor as the conduit for laundering political donations.
The agreement has drawn significant scrutiny from watchdog groups, some of which filed a complaint against Cruz with the FEC alleging he “brazenly violated” laws that bar candidates from receiving corporate donations. Though the senator admitted to having met with representatives from the company to discuss the acquisition of the show, the agency ruled in his favor, finding that there was “no available information to indicate that Cruz solicited, directed, received, transferred, or spent the funds iHeart paid to the PAC.”
What Cruz did was not illegal since he has “plausible deniability.” The money never touches his possession, nor is he compensated for the show. He is merely the podcaster. He reads the adverts on behalf of the parent company; they get paid. Then the PAC receives a convenient donation that is not expressly earmarked. This pipeline benefits numerous interest groups, not merely foreign lobbies. Senator Cruz is chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, which regulates telecommunications. iHeartRadio benefits from passing money through to a PAC which could result in a more favorable regulatory environment. The article is anti-PAC, but PACs are useful for challengers who seek to defeat incumbents, since they tend to have the financial advantage in any given race. What makes this worse is that foreign money is being used in this financial funneling scheme.
The Israeli government-funded ad revenue appears to operate in a similar gray area. The advertisements, which are part of the $7 million “I am Israel” campaign launched in June, are geared toward encouraging Christians to visit the country and see biblical sites for themselves.
“Israel isn’t a destination; it’s a revelation, where every site you’ve studied, every scripture you’ve memorized, every sermon that ever moved you suddenly has an address, a landscape, a heartbeat,” Ben Ferguson, Cruz’s co-host, says in one ad. “This is the trip that changes not just how you see the Holy Land, but how you see everything.”
In the aftermath of October 7th, Israel’s reputation has been in terminal decline, but also their tourism industry, since war is bad for business. The “I am Israel” campaign is a surge to boost tourism after three years of war. American tourism to Israel is a fifth of its 2019 volume. iHeartRadio is a major recipient of this ad campaign, and Cruz’s Verdict is the most known spokesman for it.
Other podcasts known to promote Israeli tourism include Jack Hibbs, The Middle East Report With John Riley, and Lamb and Lion Ministries. Then there are the influencers who take the tour, which would include the folks at Crosspolitic.
Ferguson then urges listeners to “start planning your trip today” and tells them to follow “Visit Israel” accounts on social media. The ads do not disclose that Visit Israel is a public-facing entity of the Israeli ministry of tourism.
The campaign appears to exploit a loophole in election financing laws. Candidates and PACs are banned from receiving any funding “directly or indirectly” from foreign nationals, according to the FEC. But Cruz would only run afoul of campaign finance laws if Israel explicitly earmarked its contribution to go to the PAC, said Craig Holman, a leading expert on campaign finance laws and an ethics lobbyist at Public Citizen.
The advertisements exploit a gray area in the law and are thus legal despite the fact that there is no disclosure to the audience that the live-read is paid for by a foreign sponsor.
In 2024, Truth and Courage PAC spent tens of millions in support of Ted Cruz’s reelection. This year, they will be backing Ken Paxton, amongst other Texas Republicans. They are gearing up to spend $1.7 million in support of Paxton.
Whether Israel, China, Russia, India, or Qatar, there is foreign influence abounding in American politics. This is not the first multimillion-dollar campaign Israel has launched that would target American evangelicals. Show Faith by Works was developing a strategy to geo-target churches using cellular data to deliver pro-Israel advertisements. This was led by Brad Parscale, who works for Salem Media, which is also a hotbed for peddling Zionism. Most of the listed churches were dispensational churches demonstrating their desire to bolster support within their most sympathetic audiences. With the reputation of Israel in terminal decline, they are having to aggressively spend to maintain the same level of influence, but the more obviously they lash out, the further they accelerate their disrepute.
Absent corporate sponsorship, Conservative Media has always been susceptible to foreign dollars and questionable product pitches, but it is even more egregious when it is a politician. For Ted Cruz specifically, he was once the evangelical choice over Donald Trump in 2016. He had always been a stalwart conservative, but over the years he devolved into a swamp creature peddling foreign wars. Like any swamp creature, he is also playing games with campaign finance laws; while he might not benefit from this campaign specifically, the pipeline of super PAC donations being “coincidentally” funneled through iHeartRadio makes him just another politician.
