Cruz: ‘We Could Have Prevented More’ Fraud on COVID Relief, Including Relief Passed in 2020

On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Last Call,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) stated that there should have been more guardrails on COVID relief, including the relief provisions passed in 2020, and “we could have prevented more of” the fraud on the front end.

Cruz said, “Well, listen, the fraud — and The New York Times report estimates it at 15%, it wouldn’t surprise me if you’re looking at more extensive fraud than that. It was a problem many of us saw on the front end, many of us were concerned on the front end. And there should have been more guardrails put in when you have the federal government shoveling out trillions of dollars, there should have been more guardrails. I stood on the Senate floor, and debated Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) in support of an amendment that I offered along with another Republican senator, that would have capped — so, the federal government, right at the beginning of the pandemic, plussed-up unemployment compensation and plussed it up a lot, and we introduced an amendment that would have capped that increase so that no individual on unemployment would receive more on unemployment than they did on their job. … And it ended up being a straight party-line vote…and so, it didn’t prevail. … And we could have prevented more of this on the front end, we didn’t. And now, there needs to be a far more aggressive effort to investigate the fraud and to go after and recapture as much of it as possible.”

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