Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) vented his frustration on the Senate floor Wednesday night after Sen. Cory Booker (R-Jersey), in an unusual exchange, opposed a bipartisan bill introduced by Cruz to crack down on fake AI-generated revenge porn.
The clash is a sign that Democrats don't want to hand embattled Texas incumbents a legislative victory before Election Day.
Cruz's proposed bill, the “Take It Down Act,” appeared to be headed for passage as part of Congress' regular legislative wrap-up session before it goes on a six-week recess to prepare for the 2024 presidential election.
But Booker filed a last-minute objection to Cruz's bill, which is co-sponsored by Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Laphonza Butler of California, John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico.
Booker gave no reason for his objection, prompting Cruz, who is in the midst of a tough reelection fight, to lash out on the Senate floor.
“It's unfortunate that the senator from New Jersey never explained the reasons for his objection,” Cruz said, noting that New Jersey senator Francesca Magni had testified before the Commerce Committee about the dangers of deepfake revenge porn.
“He never gave Francesca any reason why she was rejected,” Cruz said after Booker objected..
Typically, senators explain their reasons for objecting on the floor.
Cruz grew frustrated and said he suspected politics played a role.
He wondered aloud whether Booker was trying to score “partisan political points” by blocking his legislative victories in the midst of a tough reelection fight.
“Everybody knows this is an election year. Given the lack of any substantive opposition, it's clear that there is opposition because there is an election in six weeks,” he fumed.
“I really hope that he's not standing here denying relief to victims of abuse just to score partisan political points. I'd like to think that he wouldn't do that. But in order to believe that he wouldn't do that, he'd need to actually explain why he's opposed,” he said.
Booker is a longtime ally of Cruz's general election opponent, Rep. Collin Allred (D-Texas), who reported raising $41.2 million for her Senate campaign in late June.
Last year, Booker made an impassioned appeal to raise funds for Allred on the social media platform “X.”
“I've known this guy for years, so believe me when I say, we need someone like Colin in the Senate,” Booker said in a video in November while standing next to the Texas congressman.
Cruz said Wednesday evening that he circulated the bill to his Democratic and Republican colleagues two weeks ago to iron out any potential objections.
He expected the bill to be on a list of non-controversial items that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Republican leaders agreed to include in putting together a draft of the unfinished bill before he leaves town for the fall campaign.
But late objections from Booker led to the plan being halted.
“Ninety-nine senators agreed. He had a week and a half to object. This bill was on the verge of passing yesterday, but an hour before it was to pass, the senator from New Jersey objected,” Cruz said on the floor, expressing outrage at his New Jersey colleague's last-minute blocking of the bill.
Booker spokesman Jeff Geertz accused Cruz of staging the floor showdown to score political points for himself.
“Senator Cruz has refused to work with Senator Booker and other Senators to resolve their legitimate concerns about the bill. It is clear from Senator Cruz's social media posts that his floor stunt was not an attempt to advance bipartisan legislation but a cynical attempt to score political points in his fierce campaign against Collin Allred. Senator Cruz is trying to create controversy where there should be no controversy at all, only cooperation and collaboration, which he clearly has no interest in,” he said.
“The sharing of non-consensual explicit images online is a serious and urgent issue, and Senator Booker has a proven track record of working to address it,” a Booker aide said.
Cruz's bill would criminalize the publication of deepfake pornography, also known as “non-consensual intimate images,” and require major tech companies to take steps to remove such images within 48 hours of receiving a valid request from a victim.
The bill is intended to protect victims like Mani, a 15-year-old high school student in New Jersey, who discovered last year that a boy in his class was using AI to fabricate nude images of her and her classmates and distribute them online.
“Without Senator Cruz's bill, teenagers will continue to create AI deepfake images of girls,” Mani said in testimony before the Commerce Committee in June.
“It's clear that we don't have the law. We women are on our own. Given that 96% of victims of deepfake AI are women and children, we are also extremely vulnerable and we need your help,” she told senators.
Cruz noted on the floor that his bill contains some of the same language that Booker called for in another bill sponsored by Klobuchar, the “SHIELD Act.” The Senate passed the bill by oral vote on July 10. The bill would create federal criminal charges against individuals who share private, sexually explicit or nude images without consent.
Senators Cruz and Klobuchar's Take It Down Act would go even further by criminalizing AI-generated sexually explicit images.
“At the urging of my New Jersey colleagues, the SHIELD bill was significantly revised before it was passed,” Cruz said. “It appears that the New Jersey senator no longer supports the language he voted for and helped negotiate and draft.”
After the exchange on the floor, Klobuchar said she didn't know exactly why Booker opposed it.
“We have to get it done by the end of the year. I'm going to talk to Corey about it,” she said. “There are some things that are not in the bill for Corey. [the Shield Act] It's about the bill that passed the Senate. … I don't know. I'm going to talk to him about it.”
