Maxine Waters Slams GOP's 'Calamity Act' Warns Bill Plants The 'Seeds For The Next Financial Crisis'

Forbes Breaking News

During debate on the House floor, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) ripped into HR 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act.

Transcript

00:00Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

00:06Gentlewoman is recognized.

00:09Crypto Week has been going so well, hasn't it?

00:14Mr. Speaker, that's because bailing out billionaires is hard work.

00:20I look how hard Republicans worked to strip health care from 17 million Americans,

00:29shutter rural hospitals, and take food assistance from 12 million people

00:35just to hand the richest 1% of Americans a tax break they don't need.

00:41No one should be surprised that the Republicans' next order of business

00:46is a billion-dollar handout to the president himself.

00:51In just six months, President Trump has enriched himself and his family

00:57to the tune of $1.2 billion, and that's just the beginning.

01:04President Trump used to call crypto a scam in 2021.

01:10Trump said, and I quote,

01:12Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam.

01:15I don't like it because it's another currency competing against the dollar, end quote.

01:22Melania was actually first to get involved in the crypto ecosystem.

01:31In January 2022, she announced an auction of her non-fungible token, or NFT, collection.

01:41Trump then followed suit in December 2022, launching his own NFT collection,

01:49ditching his concerns about crypto because he saw it as a way to pad his pockets.

01:57Now, during the campaign trail, Trump ramped up his crypto involvement.

02:03In September 2024, he and his family launched World Liberty Financial, a crypto trading platform.

02:13So, days before the inauguration, Trump launched his meme coin,

02:20which he later used to offer access to the White House to the highest bidder, foreign or domestic.

02:28But his family's crypto empire hasn't stopped there.

02:32World Liberty Financial launched a stable coin called USD1.

02:38And shortly after that, the Abu Dhabi-backed investment firm MDX bought $2 billion worth of Trump's coin

02:50to make an investment in Binance.

02:53Trump's family has also launched a Bitcoin mining operation

02:58and multiple crypto exchange traded funds, or ETFs.

03:03All of this comes at the same time that the Trump administration has taken away the independence

03:10of the financial regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission.

03:16He issued Executive Order 14255, which now requires all rules written by the financial regulators

03:24to be reviewed and approved by, guess what, the White House budget office.

03:31This means this bill would hand over to the president the ability to write the rules he wants

03:39to advance his crypto operations.

03:43Not only that, but under the Trump administration, the SEC has said that meme coins, stable coins,

03:51and bitcoins mining all do not fall under their oversight.

03:56Can you imagine that?

03:57Do these assets sound familiar?

04:01Oh, yes, they do.

04:03Because these are all ventures that Trump and his family are pursuing.

04:09Now, with no oversight, no oversight, but Wall Street's comp on the beat, that is the SEC.

04:17Surely, each of you can see how this is a blatant conflict of interest, right?

04:23Well, Democrats do.

04:24It's why I introduced the Stop Trump in Crypto Act to ban the president, vice president,

04:32and all the members of Congress from crypto corruption.

04:36If we do not ban elected officials, including the president or vice president,

04:43from this crypto corruption in H.R. 3633, each of us will be complicit.

04:48And yet, even if we included language to stop the crypto con, this bill, which should be called

04:57the Calamity Act, is bad public policy.

05:02Plain and simple, the bill would lead to increased investor harm, plant the seeds for the next

05:09financial crisis, and endanger our national security.

05:13Just last week, the former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission warned

05:19that this bill would allow traditional companies like Apple or Google to evade securities laws.

05:29They could walk away from the disclosure, anti-fraud, liability, and corporate governance protections

05:38that investors have relied on for 90 years.

05:43And the bill blocks our state regulators from protecting seniors against fraud and crypto.

05:51Additionally, the Calamity Act does not address illicit finance and other crimes commonly seen in the crypto space.

06:00It does not provide nearly enough direction to agencies which would be required to match the level of financial crimes

06:09and non-compliance seen in the industry.

06:13Nor does it provide sufficient funds for federal agencies to examine and enforce these laws.

06:20For all of these reasons, I strongly, strongly oppose this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

06:29I don't want one reserves.

06:30I don't want one reserves.

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