Sen. Cruz: Objection to Revenge Porn Bill Political

An angry Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, took to the Senate floor Wednesday night after Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., objected to a bipartisan bill sponsored by Cruz cracking down on deepfake revenge porn generated by artificial intelligence.

The Take it Down Act, which had co-sponsors from six Democrats, was likely to sail through being voted on before Congress goes into recess ahead of the 2024 election, the Hill reported.

But then Booker objected, without providing a reason. Francesca Mani, a New Jersey resident, had testified about her experiences with deepfake revenge porn, a point not lost on Cruz.

“I am saddened that the senator from New Jersey chose to give no explanation for his objection,” Cruz said. “He chose to give no reason to Francesca why she’s being denied.”

Cruz said he believes Democrats were trying to deny him a win right before he faces the voters for a third term. Cruz is locked in a tight race with Rep, Colin Allred, D-Texas.

“It’s not lost on anyone that this is an election year, and I will say absent a single substantive objection, the obvious inference is that this objection is being made because we’ve got an election in less than six weeks,” Cruz said. “I sure hope he’s not standing up here denying victims of this abuse relief simply to score partisan political points. I would like to think he wouldn’t do such a thing. But in order to believe he wouldn’t do such a thing; he needs to actually explain some reason for his objection.”

The Cruz campaign noted a post on X from Allred in November in which Booker enthusiastically asked voters to donate $5 to unseat Cruz.

Cruz said he worked across the aisle to ensure the bill could get passed before the fall recess.

“It cleared 99 senators. He had a week and a half to object. Yesterday, this legislation was about to pass, and an hour before it was going to pass, the senator from New Jersey raised his objection,” Cruz said.

Jeff Giertz, a spokesperson for Booker, accused Cruz of staging the floor confrontation to score his own political points.

“Sen. Cruz refused to work together to resolve Sen. Booker and other senators’ legitimate concerns with the bill,” Giertz told The Hill. “It’s clear from Sen. Cruz’s social media posts that his floor stunt was not about advancing bipartisan legislation but a cynical attempt to score political points in his tight race with Colin Allred. Sen. Cruz is trying to create controversy where there has been none and should only be cooperation and collaboration — something he clearly has no interest in,” he said.

The TAKE IT DOWN Act aims to protect and empower victims of nonconsensual intimate image abuse, also known as "revenge pornography."

The bill would criminalize the publication of nonconsensual intimate imagery, or NCII, including AI-generated deepfake pornography, and require social media and similar websites to have in place procedures to remove such content upon notification from a victim.