As President Donald Trump headed over to his Virginia golf course for a gala with the 250 top buyers of his $TRUMP “memecoin,” Democrats are trying to find ways to push back on the president’s incursions in the cryptocurrency market.
Sen. Chris Murphy said Thursday that Democrats will demand a vote on an amendment prohibiting the president and other officials from profiting off stablecoins as part of the GENIUS Act, a cryptocurrency bill that would regulate stablecoins.
“The only power you have in a minority, on many days, is to demand amendment votes to move to a final vote on legislation,” Murphy said at a press conference with Rep. Sam Liccardo and Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Elizabeth Warren. The amendment is unlikely to become law. But it could put Republicans on the record over the president’s memecoin gambit, Murphy said.
“It’ll be interesting to see what some of the Senate Republicans do if presented with a really simple amendment: Should the ethics provisions in this bill that already applied to members of Congress and to everybody that works for Donald Trump also apply to Donald Trump?” Murphy said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended Trump’s decision to participate in the memecoin gala and his crypto activities.
“Stablecoin legislation should be passed on a bipartisan basis,” White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly told NOTUS in a statement. “President Trump is dedicated to making America the crypto capital of the world and revolutionizing our digital financial technology. His assets are in a trust managed by his children, and there are no conflicts of interest.”
On Monday, Democratic senators agreed to move forward the GENIUS Act, which previously failed a floor vote earlier this month. While Democratic senators said that the text would be significantly amended before it reached a floor vote again, the addition of an amendment openly limiting the president’s action might derail the passage of this bill.
Trump and his crypto czar, David Sacks, have spoken in support of the GENIUS Act, saying that the stablecoin industry could bring billions of dollars to the American economy.
Democrats have condemned Trump’s exclusive dinner with buyers of his cryptocurrency due to the anonymous nature of many digital assets. Independent analysis of the buyers of Trump’s coin found that most of them likely live outside the U.S. The lawmakers called on Trump to release the list of attendees.
Democrats said that Trump’s incursion into cryptocurrency, where anonymous donors can directly donate to the president without leaving any paper trail, is a sign the administration is embracing political corruption and a threat to democracy.
Liccardo said that Republican lawmakers were privately disgusted with Trump’s crypto activities.
“Several of my Republican colleagues are willing to acknowledge that this is horrific, whether they’re willing to do so publicly is entirely a different question,” he added.
Correction: This story previously ommitted the name of the final comments; they were said by Rep. Sam Liccardo.
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Samuel Larreal is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
This story was produced as part of a partnership between NOTUS and San José Spotlight.