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ted cruz
Ted Cruz Says His Bill Will Allow DOJ to 'Prosecute' Those Who Fund No Kings Protests, Which Have Been Overwhelmingly Peaceful
"They want to ban protests," warned journalist Mehdi Hasan. "They want to kill the First Amendment."
Oct 16, 2025
Doubling down on efforts by Republicans to smear the peaceful “No Kings” protest movement as “terrorism,” Sen. Ted Cruz on Wednesday called for the passage of legislation he introduced earlier this year to “prosecute” those funding the protests.
This weekend, organizers expect millions to gather in over 2,500 locations around the country in protest against President Donald Trump, including at the National Mall in Washington, DC.
In a Fox News interview on Wednesday, Cruz (R-Texas) claimed that the rallies were funded by the billionaire liberal donor George Soros, whom the Trump administration has indicated it plans to target using the criminal division of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
“You look at this No Kings rally and there’s considerable evidence that George Soros and his network is behind funding these rallies, which may well be riots all across the country,” Cruz said. “So I’ve introduced legislation called the Stop FUNDERs Act that would add rioting to the list of predicate offenses for RICO.”
Cruz said that the legislation would allow the Department of Justice to “prosecute the money that is funding the antisemitic protests on campuses,” (referring to pro-Palestine protests), “the pro-open border protests in [Los Angeles] and other cities (protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement), and these ‘No King’ protests.”
RICO refers to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which has historically been used to prosecute organized crime leaders for violence carried out by members of their organizations.
In the wake of the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller suggested that RICO should be used as part of an effort to “dismantle” left-wing nonprofits, which he claimed have incited violence and terrorism through First Amendment-protected speech criticizing Kirk’s views.
Subsequent reporting from Reuters last week confirmed that the Trump administration was waging a “crackdown on the finances and activities of liberal nonprofits and groups opposed to his agenda,” describing it as “a multi-agency effort with top White House aide Stephen Miller playing a central role.”
Several Republicans, including Trump, have accused liberal nonprofits of funding “domestic terror networks” throughout the country, though they’ve presented little evidence for the assertion.
Soros’ group, the Open Society Foundations, has pushed back on the administration’s claims with a spokesperson stating: “Neither George Soros nor the Open Society Foundations fund protests, condone violence, or foment it in any way. Claims to the contrary are false.”
While Cruz stated that his Stop FUNDERs Act, introduced in July, would protect “freedom of speech and peaceful protest,” the acronym “FUNDERs” is short for “Financial Underwriting of Nefarious Demonstrations and Extremist Riots,” which implies that even nonviolent protests deemed objectionable by the DOJ could be targeted.
There have already been several No Kings rallies around the country since Trump took office in January. The largest one, which took place on June 14, is estimated by the Crowd Counting Consortium to have had anywhere from 2 million to 4.8 million participants, making it the second-largest single day of nonviolent protest in the Trump era, second only to the nationwide Women’s Marches and other demonstrations following Trump’s first inauguration in 2017.
The group’s analysis, published in August, examined thousands of events across the country and found that 99.5% of the reported protests had no injuries or property damage. Of the 10 documented events that did involve violence or property damage, it was often directed against the protesters. At one demonstration in Salt Lake City, an armed “safety volunteer” shot and killed a peaceful demonstrator and wounded another. In several other cases, police and opponents of the protests have brandished weapons at the demonstrators.
Their report also noted that “the No Kings coalition has hosted several online trainings... that have attracted hundreds of thousands of views. The July 16 virtual training was probably the largest nonviolence training in US history, with over 130,000 registered.”
As author Mike Rothschild noted on X, “previous No Kings protests have been so peaceful and anodyne that I’ve seen far-left folks complaining they aren’t accomplishing anything. There’s no conspiracy here, no Soros-paid agitators, just people walking and holding funny signs. You can’t make something out of nothing.”
Despite this, in the days leading up to this weekend’s No Kings protests, Republican leaders have attempted to portray it as a violent movement. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) described it as a “hate America rally” that would include “Antifa,” a group that the Trump administration has designated as a “domestic terrorist” organization and threatened with lethal military force. Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) said this weekend’s marches were being run by the “terrorist wing” of the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) said that “we’ll have to get the National Guard out” to combat the demonstration, adding: “Hopefully it will be peaceful. I doubt it.”
Responding to Cruz’s pledge to prosecute the funders of No Kings, Mehdi Hasan, founder of the media outlet Zeteo, warned: “They want to ban protests. It’s insane and should scare every American. They want to kill the First Amendment.”
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Stephen Miller Claims Simply Calling Trump Authoritarian 'Incites Violence and Terrorism'
"Trying to criminalize the act of calling a government 'authoritarian,'" one journalist said, "is exactly what an authoritarian government would do."
Sep 25, 2025
Stephen Miller, the White House's deputy chief of staff, signaled how far he is willing to go to criminalize dissent against President Donald Trump in a social media post on Wednesday in which he implied that merely describing the president's actions as "authoritarian" is tantamount to a criminal offense.
Miller's comments came in response to a clip of California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who appeared Tuesday on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" on CBS. In the clip, posted to X, the governor is shown describing Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) mass immigration roundups.
"Masked men jumping out of unmarked cars, people disappearing, no due process, no oversight, zero accountability—that's what's happening in the United States today," Newsom said. “People ask, ‘Is 'authoritarianism' being hyperbolic?’ Bullshit we’re being hyperbolic.”
Newsom noted that he had just signed the first bill in the nation forbidding ICE agents from wearing masks while carrying out arrests and requiring them to provide identification.
"I mean, if some guy jumped out of an unmarked car in a van and tried to grab me, by definition, you're going to push back," Newsom continued. "These are not just authoritarian tendencies; these are authoritarian actions by an authoritarian government."
Newsom directly called out comments made by Miller, who recently said on Fox News that the Trump administration should use law enforcement to "dismantle" the left following the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
“This should put chills up spines, “Newsom said. “[Miller] called the Democratic Party an ‘extremist organization,’ basically a terrorist organization, saying he’s going after his enemies."
Newsom also referred to a post made by Trump on Truth Social telling Attorney General Pam Bondi to target certain political enemies for prosecution.
Miller responded to the clip of Newsom, saying: "This language incites violence and terrorism."
As many critics pointed out, none of Newsom's statements in the clip promoted or encouraged violence. They were simply criticisms of the Trump administration’s actions, which have included rounding up immigrants without due process and singling out political opponents for persecution.
US law has historically set an extraordinarily high bar for what speech constitutes "incitement" to violence.
As Lee Rowland of the New York Civil Liberties Union explained, "The Supreme Court recognizes, rightfully, that political speech often involves really passionate, sometimes violent rhetoric. And unless and until it creates a specific and immediate roadmap to violence against others, it cannot be criminalized consistent with our First Amendment."
But Miller's comments indicate a concerted effort within the Trump administration to widen what protected political speech can be deemed violent.
On the day of Kirk’s assassination, Trump blamed “those on the radical left” for the murder, saying they “have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. He added that “This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.”
Earlier this week, Trump signed an executive order designating “antifa,” short for antifascist, as a “domestic terrorist organization"—although it is not, in fact, an organization at all. Without a concrete group to target, critics have warned that the designation will instead be used to label those who describe Trump as “fascist” or “authoritarian” as threats in and of themselves.
Bondi suggested last week, in comments that were met with derision across the political spectrum, that the administration would use law enforcement to go after "hate speech," which is generally protected by the First Amendment.
But the characterization of criticism being equal to violence only amplified following Wednesday's shooting at an ICE facility in Dallas, which killed one detainee and critically injured two others. JD Vance made a similar suggestion that critical rhetoric toward ICE was to blame for the attack.
“When Democrats like Gavin Newsom ... say that these people [ICE] are part of an authoritarian government, when the left-wing media lies about what they’re doing, when they lie about who they’re arresting, when they lie about the actual job of law enforcement... What they’re doing is encouraging crazy people to go and commit violence," said Vance.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), likewise, blamed the shooting on "every politician who is using rhetoric demonizing ICE and demonizing [Customs and Border Protection]."
Miller's comments, which directly refer to criticism of the Trump administration as "inciting violence and terrorism," may be the most direct indication yet of an intent to criminalize First Amendment-protected dissent.
Ironically, these threats have only made criticisms of Trump as an authoritarian grow louder.
“Trying to criminalize the act of calling a government ‘authoritarian,‘” said journalist James Surowiecki, “is exactly what an authoritarian government would do.”
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Advocates Warn Against Ted Cruz's Industry-Friendly 'Sandbox' for AI
"The mantra in Silicon Valley is 'move fast and break things,' and that's exactly what Big Tech will do with a green light to override the laws and regulations they don't want to follow," one expert said.
Sep 10, 2025
US Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz on Wednesday unveiled a legislative framework for artificial intelligence, including a bill to create a "regulatory sandbox," which the Texas Republican said is part of President Donald Trump's AI Action Plan.
The Strengthening Artificial intelligence Normalization and Diffusion By Oversight and eXperimentation (SANDBOX) Act "gives AI developers space to test and launch new AI technologies without being held back by outdated or inflexible federal rules," Cruz's office said in a statement.
While his office celebrated support for the bill from "notable organizations in the tech space like the Abundance Institute, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Information Technology Council," the consumer watchdog group Public Citizen swiftly sounded the alarm over the industry-friendly proposal.
"Public safety should never be made optional, but that's exactly what the SANDBOX Act does," said Public Citizen Big Tech accountability advocate J.B. Branch. "Companies that build untested, unsafe AI tools could get hall passes from the very rules designed to protect the public. It guts basic consumer protections, lets companies skirt accountability, and treats Americans as test subjects."
"It's unconscionable to risk the American public's safety to enrich AI companies that are already collectively worth trillions."
"The mantra in Silicon Valley is 'move fast and break things,' and that's exactly what Big Tech will do with a green light to override the laws and regulations they don't want to follow," Branch warned. "AI corporate executives see the opportunity to deploy all sorts of unregulated and untested products that can threaten our children's safety, consumers' privacy, and American democracy."
"It's unconscionable to risk the American public's safety to enrich AI companies that are already collectively worth trillions," he added. "The sob stories of AI companies being 'held back' by regulation are simply not true, and the record company valuations show it. Lawmakers should stand with the public, not corporate lobbyists, and slam the brakes on this reckless proposal. Congress should focus on legislation that delivers real accountability, transparency, and consumer protection in the age of AI."
Brendan Steinhauser, CEO of the Alliance for Secure AI, was similarly critical of Cruz's legislation on Wednesday.
"Ideally, Big Tech companies and frontier labs would make safety a top priority and work to prevent harm to Americans. However, we have seen again and again that they have not done so. The SANDBOX Act removes much-needed oversight as Big Tech refuses to remain transparent with the public about the risks of advanced AI," he said. "This raises many questions about who can enter the so-called 'regulatory sandbox' and why. We hope that we will get answers to these questions in the coming days."
Passing the SANDBOX Act, plus streamlining AI infrastructure permitting and opening up federal datasets to AI model training, is just the first pillar of Cruz's five-part framework. Part two focuses on combating government censorship. The third section is about countering "burdensome" state and foreign AI regulations. Pillar four calls for protecting Americans from scams and fraud, as well as safeguarding US schoolchildren. The fifth prong is about bioethical considerations and AI-driven eugenics.
In the absence of federal regulation, states have acted on AI. As Reuters detailed Wednesday:
Several states have criminalized the use of AI to generate sexually explicit images of individuals without their consent. California prohibits unauthorized deepfakes in political advertising and requires healthcare providers to notify patients when they are interacting with an AI and not a human.
Colorado passed a law last year aimed at preventing AI discrimination in employment, housing, banking, and other consequential consumer decisions. The tech industry has lobbied for changes to the law, and the state legislature recently pushed forward its implementation to mid-2026.
In July, ahead of the introduction of Trump's plan, over 90 groups focused on consumer protection, economic and environmental justice, labor, and more collectively called for an AI blueprint that "delivers on public well-being, shared prosperity, a sustainable future, and security for all."
Branch, whose group is part of that coalition, said at the time that "AI is already harming workers, consumers, and communities—and instead of enforcing guardrails, this administration is gutting oversight."
He said the defeat earlier this summer of a Senate measure that would have prevented state-level regulation of AI for a decade sent a clear message from the public: "No more handouts for Trump's tech bro buddies."
"We need rules and accountability," Branch said, "not a Silicon Valley free-for-all."
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