🏛️ Legislative Branch |
Congressional Record |
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On June 11, 2025, Congress took several important steps. The Senate worked on a bill called the Genius Act ( S.1582), which deals with rules for digital money called stablecoins. They voted 68 to 30 to limit debate on a key amendment to this bill and planned to vote on it and the full bill next week. The Senate also voted against stopping two military sales to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, with votes of 39-56 and 39-56 respectively. They continued considering William Long’s nomination to be the head of the Internal Revenue Service, voting 53-46 to end debate. Meanwhile, the House agreed to a rule to consider a bill ( H.R.4) that would cancel some government spending the President proposed to cut, passing the rule by 213 to 207. The House also began discussing bills about fentanyl drug control ( S.331) and immigration rules for Washington, D.C. These actions matter because they show Congress is working on financial rules, military sales, government spending, and public safety issues, shaping policies that affect the economy, national security, and health. Read full document →
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Random excerpts from the Senate
Mr. Murphy. Mr. President, I am bringing before the Senate an opportunity for us to take a stand, to take a stand against the corruption of American foreign policy.
The Senate will take a vote in just a moment to deny the President the ability to move forward with two arms sales--one to Qatar and one to the United Arab Emirates.
I believe that this Senate should join Republicans and Democrats together in saying that any country that is willing to pay the President personally, to enrich our President personally, in order to receive favorable treatment from the United States of America in its foreign policy or to receive national security secrets from the United States of America shouldn’t be able to do business as usual with this Congress or with this country.
I want to tell you a story that is as heartbreaking as it is aggravating. We give the American President enormous power, and particularly we give the President enormous power when it comes to managing the foreign relations of this country. The President decides where we send arms. The President gets to negotiate peace treaties. The President decides how millions of troops are deployed all around the world. We trust that the President is going to use those powers for good, that the President is going to use those authorities to protect the United States of America.
But they are vast powers. They are immense powers. So there is always the potential that those powers are going to be used for corrupt purposes, that instead of using those authorities in order to gain concessions from other nations that benefit the broad American public or benefit American national security, the President may use those powers in order to enrich himself personally.
Our Founding Fathers actually thought a lot about this problem because they had watched their monarch. They had watched the King of England use the powers that he had in order--not to protect the British people but to amass enormous wealth. He used those powers both to control dissents and protests domestically, but he also used those powers in order to compel other nations and actors inside the empire to pay him tribute.
President Trump has decided that he is going to use the powers that we have given him to demand the same kind of tribute that Kings and monarchs demanded.
The reason we have to stand together today to vote against these arm sales to Qatar and UAE is because unfortunately these two countries, who are admittedly often allies, important allies of the United States, have decided to comply with President Trump’s request to pay him that tribute.
Shortly before the President went to the Middle East, he did not dispense to the region his Secretary of State. Instead, he dispensed to the region his business partners. Just before the President made his first major foreign trip to the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and to Qatar, he sent his son and their business partner--who, not coincidentally, happens to be the son of Trump’s Middle East Envoy--to the United Arab Emirates.
Their request was pretty simple. Their request was not that the UAE do something that would be in the interest of collective American security; their request was that the UAE invest $2 billion in Trump’s new crypto business--in particular, his stablecoin venture. This is the President of the United States going to the UAE and asking a foreign government to invest $2 billion in his personal business. The company is called World Liberty Financial. On World Liberty Financial’s website, it says the majority of the company is owned by Donald J. Trump.
This was a pretty exceptional request to make because his crypto business was brand new. At the time, it was a pretty minor player. So a $2 billion investment from a country like UAE would vault World Liberty Financial into the stratosphere. And, in fact, it did. When the UAE complied with that corrupt request, World Liberty Financial--the stablecoin that it issues became the fifth biggest stablecoin in the world overnight.
Now, the UAE felt like it had to comply with the President’s request because they had things they wanted from the United States.
First, they wanted a continuation of arm sales, including the sale of Chinook helicopters that we will be voting on today. But they wanted something more specific, something that they weren’t able to get from the first Trump administration or from the Biden administration. They wanted some of our most vital, most significant national security secrets. They wanted to be able to get their hands on computer chip technology, the kind of technology that will power the next generation of AI.
We as a nation--again, based on bipartisan consensus--had been unwilling to give UAE that technology because it is a fairly open secret that the UAE has a very close, very cozy relationship with China, and there was a very real worry--there still is a real worry--that that technology, if transferred to the UAE, would be quickly transferred to China, allowing China to be able to outpace us, to outrun us in the race to advanced AI.
But the UAE knew that there was a way to get what they wanted, that there was a way to change the policy of the United States, and it was a $2 billion investment in Trump’s business.
Not coincidentally, just weeks after they announced they were putting $2 billion into Trump’s crypto business, his father--who, again not coincidentally, is Trump’s Middle East Envoy--went back to the region and announced that they would be moving forward with the transfer of these computer chips to the UAE--$2 billion into the President’s crypto venture, a plane that, when all is said and done, is probably going to be worth about $1.5 billion, straight transferred to Donald Trump personally--this is unprecedented in the history of the United States of America. Never has a President of the United States, while in office, solicited, sought, and accepted billions of dollars’ worth of investments in his private companies or gifts to him and his family.
Remember, our Founding Fathers thought about this problem. They worried about this exact situation: a President using the vast power of the article II authorities he is given in order to trade favorable American treatment for foreign countries in exchange for personal enrichment of the President. They literally wrote a clause into the Constitution which, clear as day, says that a President of the United States cannot accept gifts from a foreign Prince, King, or nation. That is exactly what the President is doing. This plane is a gift. He advertises it as a gift--a gift that will be in the American public’s hands for a nanosecond before it goes into his private hands.
If we don’t take a stand, if we don’t act together against this unconstitutional corruption of our foreign policy, I don’t know that we can ever get this genie back in the bottle.
I understand that it is difficult for my Republican colleagues to stand up to this President, but we have an independent responsibility, as a coequal branch of government charged with upholding the Constitution, to call out wrong when we see it, to call out illegality when we see it. This is wildly unconstitutional. This is wildly illegal.
So we have a chance today, with these resolutions, in order to make clear that we are not going to accept or make normal this kind of corruption of American foreign policy.
Now, Mr. President, I will finish with this because my colleague from Maryland is going to add some remarks.
I admit that these are imperfect vehicles. It is all part of the same story. Trump would not be moving forward with these arms sales if he wasn’t getting what he wanted personally from these two countries. But I also admit that the UAE and, most especially, Qatar have been allies of the United States. We have worked together in our efforts, for instance, to combat terrorism in the region. Qatar specifically has, at times, been a heroic partner of the United States. We would never have been able to rescue thousands of Americans and American allies from Afghanistan without Qatar’s help.
Qatar has consistently acted as an interlocutor between warring and conflicting factions in the region. Qatar has taken risks on behalf of the United States. We, of course, have thousands of American troops and soldiers and airmen in Qatar today.
And so what we need to say here is not that we are going to permanently pause our military relationships with these countries, but for the time being, while these two nations are willing to pay the President tribute, we cannot endorse or condone business as usual.
These are important partners of the United States in the region. They will be important partners in the future. But this is an exceptional moment where the corruption and our effort to stop the corruption has to take priority and has to take precedent. And so I am going to vote for both of these resolutions while also still believing that we are going to have a continued, important bilateral relationship with Qatar and with the UAE.
But if we start to endorse and grease the wheels of this kind of corruption, then there will be no end because once it becomes accepted, once it becomes implicitly endorsed by the U.S. Senate that foreign governments can put money into the personal treasury of the President in order to gain favorable treatment from the United States of America, that becomes the way our foreign policy works.
So I appreciate my colleagues’ time and attention to this matter, and I encourage them to support these motions when they come up for a vote later this afternoon.
— Sen. Christopher Murphy (D-CT)
Mr. Merkley. Mr. President, we are living in a time of open government corruption that few of us thought could occur here in the United States of America. We sometimes recognize it and expect it in countries far away where authoritarian figures take a slice of every contract that moves through the government but not here in the United States of America, and yet here we are.
President Trump has planted a Government for Sale'' sign on the White House lawn, and individuals and foreign governments are funneling money into his pocket and his family's pocket in order to gain access and influence. The GENIUS Act attempts to set up some guardrails for buying and selling a type of cryptocurrency--one type--called a stablecoin. We need guardrails that ensure that government officials aren't openly asking people to buy their coins in order to increase their personal profit or their family's profit. Where are those guardrails in this bill? They are completely, totally absent. The GENIUS Act doesn't set up guardrails for the President or the Vice President. It doesn't set up guardrails that prevent an open invitation for people to buy access and influence by buying cryptocoins that increase the wealth of elected officials. Without such a guardrail, this bill should never pass. We have the opportunity now to debate anti-corruption amendments, but I understand the majority leader has decided to cancel any amendments from being considered here on the floor of the Senate. Whether those are amendments that protect the consumer from scams in which seniors are directed to go and change their cash for cryptocoins at an ATM--a new way of sending their money overseas that doesn't go through a bank teller who might possibly warn against a scam; whether it is plugging the many holes in this bill in order to have a proper regulatory framework; or whether it is to address the open corruption, none of those amendments are going to be considered--not a one--after the majority leader promised an open amendment process. I would say to my colleague: If you promise an open amendment process, deliver it because people made votes on the motion to proceed to this bill based on that promise, and now you have broken it. That is a breach of trust. It is simply wrong in this body, where your word is your bond. Now, I understand that you changed your mind because you didn't like one of the amendments your own Member proposed. Your own Republican caucus Member proposed an amendment you didn't like--a convenient opportunity to prevent this body from debating a whole set of important ideas related to this bill to protect consumers, to have better regulatory safeguards, and to end the corruption that is so evident right now. Even at this last moment, I would say: Colleagues, vote against ending debate on this bill because without those votes to protect consumers, to increase the safeguards for regulation of this industry, and to address the corruption, this bill shouldn't go forward. So vote against it, and restore the vision the majority leader laid out that we would have that type of debate on this bill when the motion to proceed was voted on. The public deserves us having that debate as well. And shouldn't they know where we stand on these issues? Because that is the feedback loop for the next election: Where do we stand? But if we dodge having a real debate on real issues on the floor of the Senate, they don't know where we stand on improving the regulatory safeguards; they don't know where we stand on blocking the personal scams ripping off our seniors; they don't know where we stand on the crypto scams that we are becoming so familiar with. You have all heard of a meme coin. Maybe you haven't. A meme coin is basically a digital baseball card. And President Trump has one. It is called the $TRUMP coin. The $TRUMP coin, you can own. You can buy it. You pay a dollar to the Trump family, and you get--well, what do you get? Nothing. Nothing. You don't even get an email with a picture of a coin, but you think of it like that. You get a register on an investment site that shows you now own a dollar coin. You get nothing. This coin can't even be used to buy anything. So what it is, is the President saying: Give me your money. Open your wallet. And I will give you nothing--nothing--of tangible value. Maybe the closest approximation would be a digital baseball card. That is it. Now, he held a dinner at his golf course out in Virginia. For that dinner, he said: I am going to invite the 220 people who give me the most money by buying my meme coin. Open your wallet. Give me millions of dollars. You will get a special dinner, special access, and I will give you a digital baseball card. Anyone who thinks that those 220 people who spent some $140 million-plus to attend that dinner were seeking to buy digital baseball cards--well, we have a London bridge to sell you in the middle of the desert in Arizona. Nobody gave the President millions of dollars through acquiring his meme coins in order to get a digital baseball card. They did it because they knew that was the price to pay for access and influence. They were responding to the Government for Sale’’ sign on the lawn of the White House.
It isn’t just conjecture that that is the case. We know it is the case because various folks told us. For example, Javier Selgas, CEO of Freight Technologies, Inc., announced that his company had bought $2 million of Trump’s meme coins. They had given Trump $2 million. And he said: We want to buy $20 million. Whether they did or not, I don’t know because there is no disclosure. He said ``I want to buy that $20 million of coins’'--that is, to give $20 million to President Trump--so he will have a better policy regarding the movement of freight between Mexico and the United States of America.
Thank you to the CEO of Freight Technologies for laying out very clearly what everyone knew: This is a scheme to sell influence on the U.S. Government, to make the President and his family mega rich.
There is a second type of coin the Trump family is involved in, and this one can be used as currency in international transactions. Now, this type of coin--why would you use it? Well, maybe you want to launder money. That would be a good reason to use it. Maybe you want to smuggle arms around the world. Maybe you want to be involved in drug transactions. Maybe you are plotting a terrorist act. Those would be good reasons to use a digital coin rather than using dollars or another currency that is overseen by basic banking regulations around the world. You want a currency where people can’t see you buy it, can’t see you own it. You can buy it here and convert it back into cash somewhere else. It is great for money laundering, great for crime.
So along comes a company called MGX, and that company is headed by the National Security Advisor of the United Arab Emirates. That company says: Hey, President Trump, we will buy $2 billion of your special digital coin that we can use to invest in another company called Binance.
And with this coin, what does the President get? He gets that $2 billion--or rather his company does--and they put that into investments, and Mr. Trump and his family keep the proceeds of those investments--even if that investment is only earning 4 percent. Over the course of a year, that is $80 million being given to the President’s family in order to gain influence.
What did the UAE want? They told us. United Arab Emirates said: What we want are AI chips, and we want an AI center in the Emirates. Well, that was in March, and then they announced that they are going to buy Trump’s $2 billion of coins.
And then what did President Trump do? He went to the Middle East, and he said: You know what, I have a great idea: Let’s give you AI chips to create an AI center in Abu Dhabi--one of the Emirates.
UAE requested a policy. They bought $2 billion of Trump coins, and Trump delivered the policy.
That is corruption. That is the Mount Everest of corruption. That is corruption at a level never seen in the history of the United States of America.
We could vote on an amendment on this bill to end that corruption if the majority leader honors his commitment to an open amendment process. So I request of the majority leader that he honor his commitment and have that open amendment process.
Otherwise, it is an endorsement of this corruption, and I don’t think any Member--certainly on this side of the aisle--wants to endorse corruption. And I would suggest that I don’t think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to endorse corruption.
So let’s vote on an amendment to end it.
And certainly, this provision wouldn’t apply just to the President and Vice President, not just to the senior adviser. It applies to us too. We shouldn’t be selling meme coins as an open way for people to give us money. Not one of us should be saying: Do you want access and influence? Buy my digital baseball card and buy it at high volumes, make me a rich man, make my family rich for generations to come, and you get special access.
That is exactly what is going on right now.
Colleagues, again, this is the moment. We are on a bill related to cryptocurrencies. In fact, the entire bill is about cryptocurrencies. So let’s make this the moment that we actually debate amendments that improve the regulatory structure that has been laid out in the bill, that proceeds to address some of the consumer scams, including ATMs that convert dollars into digital coins being used to scam our seniors out of their lifesavings. And, yes, let’s debate amendments that end this type of crypto corruption.
Let’s rip that sign off the White House lawn that government is for sale. Let’s never again have a CEO say: I am buying $2 million of Trump’s coins in order to influence a policy involving trade between Mexico.
Let’s never again have a company tied to the Government of UAE say: We are going to buy $2 billion of Trump coins in order to influence policy and get an AI center established in our nation.
Never, never, never should our government be up for sale in this fashion, and this is the moment when we can take that on if the majority leader honors his commitment to an amendment process.
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Random excerpts from the House
Mr. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA-7):
Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of our neighbors and community members, our immigrant brothers and sisters who are being targeted and abducted, taken from their homes, torn away from their babies, and disappeared on their way to church, work, and school.
There are children crying in their teachers’ arms, families separated, and communities traumatized that if they have not already been kidnapped, they are fearful that they will be.
Children crying in their teachers’ arms are afraid that they are going to come home and their parents will be gone. There are elders carrying all of their medications with them in their comings and goings for fear of being abducted and sent somewhere without access to necessary healthcare.
We see a spike in no-shows and cancelations at health clinics as patients would rather miss critical care than risk detainment. We see young parents and grandparents alike attending their immigration court hearings, eager to officially call this country their home, only to be met with handcuffs and shoved into cars by masked ICE individuals.
This is Donald Trump’s America, but these are real people. These are hardworking people whose labor and contributions make our communities a better place. These are young people who show up every day in our schools as part of our learning communities. These are mothers and fathers working overtime to provide for their children.
— Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA-7)
Mr. Robert B. Aderholt (R-AL-4):
Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, most Members in this Chamber know someone who has been affected by the drug overdose epidemic plaguing our country. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2023, there were more than 107,000 overdose deaths that occurred in the United States. These staggering numbers are due in large part to the increasing presence of fentanyl and fentanyl analogues which are approximately 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin. The lethal dose of fentanyl is just 2 milligrams or about four grains of sand.
A loophole that the cartels have tried to use to traffic their illicit fentanyl into our country is by changing one part of fentanyl’s chemical structure to create fentanyl analogues. The cartels did this in an attempt to evade our criminal laws.
Right now, fentanyl analogues are considered schedule I substances, but only because of a series of temporary scheduling orders, and that order is now set to expire on September 30 of this year.
That is why the HALT Fentanyl Act, led by myself and my friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Latta) in this House and then Senators Cassidy and Heinrich in the Senate, is critically needed.
This bill aims to curb overdose deaths by permanently scheduling fentanyl analogues as schedule I substances, Mr. Speaker. This will strengthen law enforcement’s ability to prosecute fentanyl traffickers and act as a deterrent.
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