CV NEWS FEED // Sen. Ted Cruz, R-TX, spoke out on the Senate floor on Wednesday after his colleague Sen. Cory Booker, D-NJ, objected to passing the Take It Down Act (S.4569) by unanimous consent.
The bipartisan bill – sponsored by Cruz and co-sponsored by over half a dozen Democratic senators – seeks to protect children by imposing criminal penalties against spreading explicit pictures of them, or “deepfakes” resembling them generated by artificial intelligence (AI).
Booker’s office hinted that the New Jersey Democrat blocked the legislation to stop Cruz from scoring “political points” before he faces voters in November. Cruz is favored to win re-election to a third term against his opponent, Rep. Colin Allred, D-TX, a noted Booker ally.
One of the main proponents of Cruz’s bill is Francesca Mani, now 15. Multiple male classmates of Mani’s had maliciously created sexually explicit images of her using AI deepfake technology – an example of a phenomenon often referred to as “revenge porn.”
Mani, a New Jersey resident, is Booker’s constituent.
“On behalf of the countless teenagers and others, who have been victimized by real, and by deepfake explicit images,” said Cruz on the Senate floor, “I urge my colleagues to come together with a simple bipartisan common-sense step and pass the Take It Down Act.”
Cruz then called for unanimous consent to pass the bill, a common practice for advancing non-controversial legislation.
Booker was the lone senator to express opposition, simply stating, “I object.”
Following the Democrat’s objection, Cruz said “I am saddened that the senator from New Jersey chose to give no explanation for his objection.”
Booker “chose to give no reason to Francesca, why she’s being denied,” the Texas Republican emphasized. “He had an opportunity to explain his rejections, you know what he said? Nothing.”
Cruz further stated that Booker “had a week and a half to object” to the bill, which the Texas senator had sent to his colleagues two weeks before calling for unanimous consent.
“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 continued:
He said last night, he said, “Ted, I haven’t had time to read the bill.” [It had] been circulated to his office two weeks earlier. But he said he had not had time to read the bill. I said, “Great, I’ll delay this for a day so you can read the bill.
…
He said he had numerous substantive objections. If he does, we heard none of them. Not a word of it.
“It makes me sad he doesn’t feel his constituents deserve any explanation for blocking legislation as important as this,” Cruz stressed.
“It’s not lost on anyone that this is an election year,” said the Texas lawmaker. “The obvious inference is that this objection is being made because we’ve got an election in less than six weeks.”
Cruz added that he considers Booker to be his friend. “I sure hope he’s not standing up here denying victims of this abuse relief simply to score partisan political points.”
The Hill noted on Wednesday night that the “clash is a sign that Democrats don’t want to give” Cruz “any legislative victories before Election Day.”
In a post to X (formerly Twitter) shortly after the exchange on the Senate floor, Cruz’s campaign called Booker “Colin Allred’s good pal.”
Cruz’s team then called on the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Texas “to stand up to his colleague & urge him to pass Sen. Cruz’s bipartisan TAKE IT DOWN Act.”
Republican strategist Matt Wolking wrote in response to the post: “Did Cory Booker — who is campaigning for Colin Allred — block a Ted Cruz bill as a campaign favor to Allred?”
A member of Booker’s team attempted to explain the senator’s shocking objection.
“It’s clear from Senator 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,” the Booker spokesperson claimed:
Senator 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. Even so, Senator Booker remains committed to working together to solve this problem and others.
While one recent poll shows Allred to be polling a point ahead of the incumbent, the vast majority show Cruz with a polling lead between three and eight percentage points. Almost all political analysts agree that Cruz is the favorite to win the race.
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Seven Democratic senators co-sponsored the Take It Down Act: Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-CT, Laphonza Butler, D-CA, Martin Heinrich, D-NM, John Hickenlooper, D-CO, Amy Klobuchar, D-MN, Jacky Rosen, D-NV, and Raphael Warnock, D-GA.
Mani sharply criticized her senator for objecting to Cruz’s bill, calling his decision “very disappointing.”
“By blocking the TAKE IT DOWN Act, my elected official, Senator Cory Booker, failed me and my fellow victims and has left us vulnerable,” the victim and advocate emphasized. “I am asking, why, Mr. Booker?”
“Make no mistake,” she indicated, “without this legislation swiftly becoming a law, teens like me will continue to have no accountability.”
TIME magazine profiled Mani and her crusade to protect teenagers like herself from AI-generated revenge porn earlier this month.
“Last October, 15-year-old New Jersey high school student Franceseca Mani learned that boys in her class had used AI software to fabricate sexually explicit images of Mani and her female classmates,” TIME reported:
Since then, she has been on a mission to prevent this from happening to others: Mani has been stumping for change in front of policymakers, school boards and tech companies across the country.
“When that happened to me and my classmates, we had zero protection whatsoever,” Mani says. “I want to tell these women and girls that we’re here for them.”
…
So over the past year, Mani and her mother Dorota have been crisscrossing the country, advocating for change across all three areas. Mani spoke at a hearing to support Senator Ted Cruz’s “Take It Down” bill, which aims to force websites to remove explicit images and make publishing such content a federal crime.
Minutes before Booker objected to the Take It Down Act, Cruz shared the story of Gavin Guffey, 17, who took his own life in 2022 after a scammer victimized him with “revenge porn” images.
“A teenage boy begins a relationship online with a young girl,” Cruz recounted. “He’s smitten, and they decide to swap explicit photos with each other.”
“But it turns out, the teenage girl is a scammer and he’s just fallen prey to sextortion,” the senator continued:
The scammer repeatedly messages the young man demanding payment or the explicit photos will be sent to his friends via his social media network.
The young man embarrassed, mortified, thinking there’s no way out, dies by suicide. His name was Gavin Guffey.
Guffey’s father, South Carolina state Rep. Brandon Guffey, R-Rock Hill, was seated in the Senate chamber when Booker blocked Cruz’s bill.
“On my lapel,” Cruz indicated, “I’m wearing the heart emoji that Gavin texted his family moments before he took his own life.”
