Ted Cruz Pays Himself $500,000 After Gutting Campaign Finance Laws

Ted Cruz recently won a massive Supreme Court victory that did away with limits on the amount of money a candidate can repay themselves after loaning money to their campaign, and a new report says that he immediately repaid himself more than half a million dollars after the ruling. This new ruling opens the door for millionaires and billionaires to run for office without risking any of their own money, and that's a scary thought no matter where you fall on the political spectrum. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins discusses this.

Check out our merch by visiting our store

Subscribe to our podcast

Become a member today!

Support us by becoming a monthly patron on Patreon, and help keep progressive media alive!

Spread the word! LIKE and SHARE this video or leave a comment to help direct attention to the stories that matter. And SUBSCRIBE to stay connected with Ring of Fire's video content!

Support Ring of Fire by subscribing to our YouTube channel

Be sociable! Follow us on:

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

According to recent reports, Ted Cruz, after a massive Supreme Court victory over the summer, immediately repaid himself over half a million dollars. That was over half a million dollars that he had personally loaned to his campaigns. But because of campaign finance limits prior to his lawsuit, he could only reimburse himself $250,000. Anything he loaned the campaign over that amount was lost money. Sorry, we have limits in this country, or at least we did, as I mentioned, until Ted Cruz took it to the Supreme Court and in a six to three partisan vote this summer, the Supreme Court said, Oh, no, no, no, no, no. We're gonna scrap the limits on what you can repay yourself from your campaign. So Ted Cruz, we know you'd given yourself about a million dollars. You haven't been able to repay the whole amount. You can pay yourself back every dime from your campaign coffers because money is free speech.

So this means, let's just say a wealthy, eccentric billionaire. I don't know if there's any of those out there. Maybe somebody like Elon Musk. Elon Musk could now choose to run for office and loan his campaign a hundred million dollars, which would pretty much put him as having the most money of any candidate in the country right now, except for Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump. So Elon Musk could loan himself a hundred million dollars, and then he can go out there and raise money, and if he raises a hundred million dollars from donors, he can just pay himself back that entire a hundred million dollars. Now, if he doesn't raise a hundred million, he can't pay himself back the full amount. But if he raises 150 million, then he could just loan his campaign another 50 million, pay himself back too. That's how this works Now, but if you have a poor person who doesn't have millions of dollars in their personal bank account like Ted Cruz does, they may loan their campaign 10, $20,000.

Oh, they can still pay themselves back. But when your opponent can loan his own campaign $5 million and pay himself back, not have to worry about losing the money, then we've lost everything in this country. Folks, the Supreme Court with this decision brought to us by Ted Cruz has basically said, millionaires, billionaires, you can buy your way into a race. And don't worry, because you can pay yourself back. You're technically not losing any money as long as you can raise it from the donors to pay yourself back. That's where we're headed. That's what we have in place. Now, thanks to Ted Cruz. This man has destroyed one of the last protections we had on campaign finance limits. They're all gone now,

Folks. All of them, the wealthy won. They won. It is what it is. And nothing short of a constitutional convention to overturn Citizens United McCutchen and this Ted Cruz ruling, we have to have a constitutional amendment to make that happen. A majority of Americans want it. So what's holding us back?