Report: Is Israeli Gov’t Funneling Big Bucks to Cruz Through Radio Syndicate?
The Israeli government appears to be subsidizing GOP Senator Ted Cruz’s super Pac by purchasing ads on the Israel-First lawmaker’s podcast.
The ad campaign is appropriately titled “I Am Israel.”
While Responsible Statecraft explains that Israel is drumming up tourist revenue because Israel’s never ending wars have kept prudent tourists away from the country, the effort might also be tied to declining support for Israel among young Americans.
Super Pac Shenanigans?
Since 2022, the IHeartMedia empire has syndicated Cruz’s podcast, Verdict With Ted Cruz, RS noted.
But lobbying regulations forbid the company from lining Cruz’s deep pockets with advertising revenue. Thus, another way had to be found to funnel money to the senator, or at least to his interests.
“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 reelected to the United States Senate,’” the website disclosed:
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.
A complaint to the Federal Election Commission was futile. The agency rules that Cruz did nothing wrong because it had “no available information to indicate that Cruz solicited, directed, received, transferred, or spent the funds iHeart paid to the PAC.” He did not, FEC, ruled, “direct or solicit any funds.”
Maybe not, but the Israelis know a good deal when they see one. And with Cruz’s top priority in the Senate being support for Israel, as he told Tucker Carlson, the government funneled a boatload of cash to the super PAC through the IHeartMedia cutout.
“The Israeli government-funded ad revenue appears to operate in a similar gray area,” the report explains:
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.”
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 ad campaign “appears to exploit a loophole in election financing laws,” RS observed. Foreign governments are banned from funding fund candidates or their PACs “directly or indirectly,” as the law makes clear. But because the ad money isn’t earmarked for his PAC, election finance expert Craig Holman told the website, Cruz is in the clear.
“Assuming there is no formal agreement, then the money is considered iHeartRadio funds, with which it can do as it pleases,” Holman told RS:
Holman blamed court decisions like Citizens United for opening the path to Cruz’s “surreptitious financial arrangement” with iHeartMedia.
“The courts have fabricated a myth that outside groups are ‘independent’ of candidates and therefore fall outside the campaign finance limits and disclosure laws,” Holman told RS. “So, wealthy interests and even foreign governments launder money to outside groups with the explicit intent of the outside group spending that money to support a specific candidate. Israel is exploiting this court-created loophole.”
In other words, the Israelis are slipping money to Cruz’ super PAC without breaking the law.
Cruz, his super PAC, and IHeartMedia ducked questions from Responsible Statecraft about the clever arrangement.
Tourists Needed
RS explained that the “I am Israel” project is meant to boost tourism to the country. Seven years ago in May, 105,700 American tourists visited Israel. This May: 22,600. But Israel is also worried about support for the country among Americans. It fears “it is losing influence among American evangelicals,” the website noted:
While they have long been one of the most influential pro-Israel constituencies in the U.S., that support is now slipping; a 2025 poll found that only 24% of evangelicals under 35 years old support the Israelis over the Palestinians.
The Israeli ministry of tourism hinted at this dwindling support in a procurement document for the campaign. The goal of the June launch event was to broadcast “a message of ‘business as usual,’” according to the document, signed by Michael Yitzhakov, chief of staff of the Israeli ministry of tourism. The Israeli government agreed to pay the Jerusalem Post around $195,000 for the event.
Indeed, in July, Pew Research reported similar dismal findings, particularly among the young.
“U.S. adults under 30 express much more favorable views of the Palestinian people (58%) than of the Israeli people (32%),” Pew reported:
This pattern is driven largely by young Democrats, who are much more likely to express a positive view of Palestinians (72%) than of Israelis (26%). Republicans under 30 see both groups similarly — a sharp reversal from a few years ago, when they were much more likely to favor Israelis.
As for Cruz, he told Carlson that the Bible instructs him to support Israel. “As a Christian growing up in Sunday school I was taught from the Bible [that] those who bless Israel will be blessed and those who curse Israel will be cursed, and from my perspective I want to be on the blessing side of things,” Cruz said.
Carlson asked whether the Israel described in the Old Testament means the nation of Israel. “We are commanded to support Israel,” Cruz said. “And we’re told those who bless Israel will be blessed.”
Cruz was also clear that his mission in the Senate is supporting Israel.
“I came into Congress 13 years with the stated intention of being the leading defender of Israel in the United States Senate,” Cruz told the podcaster:
I’ve worked every day to do that.
