Senator Ted Cruz is many things: a constitutional originalist, a spineless coward, and most recently, a podcaster. His weekly show Verdict with Ted Cruz has raised some uncomfortable questions—not just about how many hours a sitting U.S. Senator should be allowed to whine about cancel-culture into a Shure mic, but about the ethics of monetizing a podcast while in office.
In 2023, watchdog groups filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging Cruz was illegally soliciting donations via the podcast. Although Cruz apparently receives no salary from the show, the iHeartRadio network has contributed nearly $1 million in ad revenue to a super PAC supporting Cruz’s reelection bid. The FEC, in its infinite wisdom, dismissed the complaint in early 2025. And while that may clear him legally, it raises a deeper, more philosophical question: Should politicians have podcasts at all?
In an effort to answer that question, I stumbled across something nearly as horrifying as Cruz’s beard: a page on the official House GOP website titled “Member Podcasts.” It turns out Ted Cruz is just the tip of a much darker iceberg. Republicans in Congress are podcasting in numbers that feel unsafe for democracy.
So I did the only heroic thing one can do in such a moment. I listened to at least three episodes of each available podcast and wrote a review of every single one, so that you, dear reader, never have to. The results were often incomprehensible and almost universally boring. Please enjoy the fruits of my labor, because I know I didn’t.