Senator Ted Cruz snapped at a reporter this week when confronted about a suspicious $630,000 donation he received from iHeartMedia, RadarOnline.com can report.
The startling incident occurred on Wednesday while Cruz was on the campaign trail in Texas promoting his 2024 Senate re-election bid.
ABC13 Houston reporter Shannon Ryan approached Senator Cruz and questioned why his re-election campaign’s political action committee received approximately $630,850 from iHeartMedia – the same media company that produces and distributes the senator’s The Verdict with Ted Cruz podcast.
Cruz previously claimed that he was not “compensated” for his podcast, and Ryan noted how iHeartMedia also employed several political lobbyists.
“So if an entity which employs lobbyists is giving hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to your re-election efforts, how can you say you’re not being compensated?” the reporter asked.
Cruz sidestepped the question and instead attacked the media and the Democrats.
“You know, it really is sad what’s happened to the media,” he responded, “which is the media exists right now seemingly to parrot left-wing, Democrat attacks.”
“The group that brought that attack is a left-wing, Democrat attack group,” he continued. “And by the way, you know what you didn’t mention in your question? The fact that they filed a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee raising these same issues.”
“You know what the Senate Ethics Committee did?” Cruz charged further. “They threw it out. They said it had no basis in law.”
Senator Cruz quickly concluded the interview with one more attack against Ryan, her outlet, and the media.
“So all the Democrats are left to do is make false personal attacks,” Cruz fumed. “I get you’re going to carry their water, but my request to you is simple: actually cover the issues!”
Meanwhile, ABC13 Houston later reported that Cruz was “referencing a 2022 complaint lodged with the [Senate Ethics] Committee which challenged the podcast deal alone and not the money pumped into the PAC the following year, which iHeartMedia has said is sourced from ad revenue from the show.”
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Shanna Ports, the senior legal counsel at the Campaign Legal Center and who filed the ethics complaint against Senator Cruz back in 2022, also weighed in on the suspicious $630,000 iHeartMedia donation in a statement to the Houston Chronicle.
“This is not an arrangement we’ve seen before,” Ports explained last week, “and it seems like Senator Cruz is trying to find a way to walk the lines between not falling into an ethics violation and not falling into a campaign finance violation.”
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Cruz’s outburst in Houston Wednesday came just days after the Texas senator called actress Scarlett Johansson “hot” during a podcast interview with fellow Senator Katie Britt.