- 7/18/2025
House Republican leaders hold a press briefing to celebrate the passage of cryptocurrency legislation.
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01:30Trump and this Congress are correcting course and unleashing America's digital asset potential
01:35with historic transformative legislation.
01:39President Trump promised to make America the crypto capital of the world, and today
01:44we deliver.
01:46The Genius Act, the Clarity Act, and our Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act deliver on the America
01:52First digital assets agenda by solidifying the dollar's dominance as the world's reserve
01:58currency, spurring innovation by creating regulatory certainty with clear market structure, and
02:06ensuring that any development of digital money reflects our American values of privacy, individual
02:13sovereignty, and free market competitiveness.
02:16Together, these three pieces of legislation set the stage for growth, innovation, and prosperity
02:23right here in the United States of America.
02:25I'd like to thank Chairman Hill, Chairman Thompson, and Chairman Stile, and my friend Dusty Johnson
02:32from, what's that state, South Dakota?
02:34Yeah, that's the one.
02:35The Lesser Dakota?
02:36For their steadfast leadership, and I am very grateful for that, on digital assets in this
02:43great House of Representatives.
02:44And I'd especially like to thank the 45th and 47th President of the United States of America, Donald
02:52J. Trump.
02:53We would not be celebrating these wins today without his vision of America on top in the
02:59global digital economy.
03:01And with that, I'm going to turn it over to our Financial Services Chair, French Hill.
03:05There's an old expression in venture capital, which is that the average overnight success
03:18takes 10 years.
03:21And what you see before us is the work by staff in the House Agriculture Committee, House Financial
03:27Services Committee, staff in the Senate Banking Committee, that people have been working on
03:32for years.
03:34And so for the better part of five years, the members here, led by Whip Emmer, our colleague
03:39from Ohio, Warren Davidson, former chair Patrick McHenry, that really set the stage for the
03:47success that we're having today.
03:50So it is not an overnight success.
03:52It's the result of hard work by staff and members on both sides of the aisle.
03:58The second old expression is that when you have that shot of unified government,
04:04where the Senate, the House and the White House are in the same political party, you have
04:09that rare opportunity to do big things.
04:13And this also is successful because, as Whip Emmer said, of the exceptional leadership from
04:19President Trump that wants fintech digital asset innovation here at home as a part of his
04:26strategy to make America great again by bringing capital back here, pursuing innovation here, and
04:33leading in digital payments just as we have for decades in global capital markets and in
04:39finance generally.
04:42So I have to say we're off to a really great start.
04:46And what an amazing set of partners I have with Brian Stile and Dusty Johnson and GT.
04:54And I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart of what a great partnership it's
04:59been.
05:01And to my friends over in the Senate, thanks for doing some work.
05:06We're so grateful to Tim Scott as the new dynamic leader of the Senate Banking Committee.
05:14And my home state senator, John Bozeman, the new chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee,
05:19they've been great partners.
05:21And bringing genius over from the Senate, passing it in the House overwhelmingly today, 308 votes.
05:30And on clarity, 294 votes.
05:35I think the doubters around here, maybe some in this room, need to go back to your, go back
05:41and check your premises of not betting against the team you have up here and the team led
05:47by Mike Johnson and Steve Scalise that are going to join us.
05:50So I want to thank the Senate.
05:52Thank my friend from college, Bill Hagerty, for putting together a great bill, finding 68 senators
05:57to vote for it.
05:58It's hard for the press corps to write the numbers, 68 for a vote in the Senate.
06:05So Bill delivered, and we have partnered with him to deliver here in the House.
06:09And now tomorrow, President Trump gets to sign into law his first of several bills to come
06:16that will help make America an incredible leader globally in digital assets.
06:21And with that, let me call on my good friend, my partner, my fellow Eagle Scout, GT Thompson,
06:26chairman of the head committee.
06:29Thanks, Bill.
06:30Hey, well, good afternoon and happy crypto day.
06:33What a way to celebrate passing three great crypto bills out of the House of Representatives.
06:40And I love it because, you know, the naysayers, the folks that look at our numbers, you know,
06:46that place odds, we're just not going to be able to get anything done.
06:50We have proved them wrong over and over and over.
06:54And, Mr. Whipp, we're not done yet, right?
06:56We've got a long ways to go.
06:57But what a great success today.
06:59Now, success for America, you know, America was in the driver's seat and is known for Internet
07:05or Web 1.0, the Internet of Knowledge.
07:08And then came along Internet 2.0, the Internet of Things.
07:11And, of course, you know, that's America.
07:13We were at the epicenter of that within the world.
07:16But the question was, who was going to have control and be the center of Web 3.0, the Internet
07:24of Value?
07:25And the competition was steep.
07:28It was great.
07:31Almost every nation in this world was positioning themselves to really be that home plate, that
07:38epicenter for the Internet of Value.
07:40But you know what?
07:41With what we did today, we have proven the United States of America will be the epicenter
07:46of Web 3.0 with these three pieces of legislation.
07:51It was principle-based legislation.
07:54In the Clarity Act, it was based on number one, it was protecting consumers.
07:58That's extremely important to do.
08:00When somebody comes out of healthcare and do no harm, that was important to our committees
08:05as we worked on that.
08:07But equally important was to provide legislation, a legislative map going forward, a regulatory
08:14regime to where we fostered innovation.
08:17Because this is not just about Bitcoin or cryptocurrency, this is about blockchain technology.
08:24We know what we can do today, but it's hard to imagine what we can do tomorrow over the
08:29horizon.
08:30But we can do that now with a framework like we've passed today.
08:33What a great team to work with.
08:36We're celebrating right now, but we're not resting.
08:49We're looking forward.
08:51And Don Davis, who is really at the tip of the spear with the subcommittee serving with Dusty, just did a great job.
08:59But, you know, we're celebrating right now, but we're not resting.
09:03We're not resting.
09:04We're looking forward.
09:05I mean, and what I see is a bright future for even more and even better.
09:11We've got a Senate that, a Senate AG that's committed to move.
09:14In fact, two days ago, they had a hearing on market structures.
09:19We're led by a mutual friend, Senator Bozeman.
09:25And then the Senate Banking Committee, which is committed to move, led by a fellow House, a former House member and a good friend to all of us, Tim Scott.
09:35And then we do have President Trump, who is committed to bringing our country into the future through the modernizing what really is the financial and technological sectors.
09:52And that's what we've done today.
09:54So I just, we'll take a few minutes to celebrate, but then, quite frankly, we're going to be right back at it.
10:00Because we've got a lot more to do and a lot more wins to put on the board.
10:03And I am really pleased to introduce a dear friend of mine.
10:07He serves on, he's a leader within our conference, and he serves on the Financial Service Committee well as subcommittee chair, Brian Stiles.
10:15Thanks, Chairman Thompson.
10:19Thanks, Chairman Thompson.
10:20An incredibly exciting day.
10:21In many ways, worth the wait.
10:23Worth the wait over the number of years that led up to this moment to pass transformative legislation in the House.
10:31Worth the wait over the past couple days.
10:33As we got everybody into agreement of how transformative and important this legislation was to be delivered.
10:42I read some tweets, probably from some of you in this room, during those debates.
10:46And I thought, time and time again, the House Republican Conference is underestimated and we over-deliver.
10:52And I think what you saw here today on the House floor, passage of these three critical pieces of legislation,
10:58is the House once again delivering for the American people on the promise that the United States will be the leader in Web 3.
11:06Three critical pieces of legislation.
11:08I want to highlight two of them in particular.
11:09The bill of stable coin legislation, the Genius Act that passed the Senate and passed the House just now,
11:17will transform stable coin, payment stable coin, and dollar-backed stable coin.
11:21It will do two really important things.
11:23One, is this can be transformative to make sure that the U.S. dollar remains the world's global reserve currency.
11:31And I don't think that that should be underestimated.
11:35It's how significant and transformative this can be in making sure that the U.S. dollar remains the world's dominant currency.
11:43The other aspect is this provides true, real, and substantive consumer protections.
11:48And I think what we showed on the House floor, with the vote total in particular,
11:53is a real opportunity to make sure that we're cementing both of those key principles in place.
11:58I can't be more excited.
12:00We'll be down at the White House tomorrow with our colleagues in the Senate,
12:04Senator Hagerty in particular, who led this bill on the Senate side,
12:08watching this bill be signed into law by President Trump.
12:11And we're thankful for President Trump's leadership across this space.
12:16The second bill that we passed, the Clarity Act, is also, I think, maybe even more transformative in the big picture.
12:24And I don't think we could give a big enough thanks to both Chairman Thompson for his years-long leadership in this,
12:32and Chairman French Hill for his continued leadership in the House Financial Services Committee in this regard.
12:40And I think the vote total is a testament to the hard work of all of those.
12:46I mean, Whip Emmer, Dusty Johnson as well, but in particular, the hard work of G.T. Thompson in Chairman French Hill.
12:53I think the Clarity Act is incredibly transformative also.
12:57And I think if we step back and look at it from a historical perspective,
13:00what we did is we survived four years of the Biden administration with the chairmanship of Gary Gensler,
13:06the Securities and Exchange Commission, putting forward often very poorly formed and horrific policy
13:12through enforcement and punishment through selective enforcement action.
13:16What this does is provides a framework with which I believe we will unleash, unleash American energy capital and human capital investment
13:26so that we're building the next wave of Web3 companies and Web3 technology here in the United States of America.
13:33And so I think this is a transformative moment.
13:35I could not be more excited for the totals that we put on the board.
13:38And I think the totals that we put on the board specifically as it relates to clarity
13:43is a massive statement of the energy that exists in the House of Representatives, that exists in the United States.
13:50And it's a call on the United States Senate to pick up this legislation and move quickly
13:55because time is of the essence that the United States maintains its lead in tech dominance
14:01and the Senate moving on this legislation quickly is absolutely essential.
14:07So it's a day of celebration. We're back to work, as Chairman Thompson said.
14:11And now I have a great honor of introducing truly one of my good friends,
14:15Subcommittee Chairman Dusty Johnson from the state of South Dakota.
14:23There are plenty of lousy days in Washington, D.C., but today is a great day.
14:29It's a great day for innovation, for bipartisanship and for American leadership.
14:34History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
14:39And before I came to Congress, I was in the broadband industry.
14:42And the 1996 Telecom Act, it provided the rules of the road that were needed to unlock the Internet era.
14:52And that was a watershed victory for our country.
14:55Ladies and gentlemen, here we are again.
15:00The Clarity Act, along with Genius and Anti-CBDC, give us those regulatory rules of the road
15:07that are necessary for us to unlock this new watershed victory for America
15:12so that we can capture the kind of innovation and consumer protection and investment
15:17that all of my colleagues have been talking about.
15:19This is a great day.
15:21I want to close with a few notes of thanks.
15:25And it's interesting, right, that we've all seen in D.C., the politicians, it's always me, me, me, me, me.
15:31Did you notice how every single one of these gentlemen talked at length about their partners
15:36in delivering this victory?
15:39And I want to lend my voices to their gratitude.
15:42President Trump has talked about a golden age of America, and he has pushed us to think bigger
15:49and think more optimistically about what we can accomplish in this space.
15:54Victory has a thousand fathers and mothers, but Donald Trump is absolutely one of them.
16:00The chairman, Hill, Thompson, style, just remarkable.
16:04The early adapters, Emmer, Davidson, McHenry, the guys, the Johnny Appleseeds who brought us to this point.
16:14The Democrats, Angie Craig, Don Davis, Richie Torres, Josh Gottheimer, so many others
16:20who understood that they might be a, they weren't going to be with 200 Democrats when the board was closed,
16:27but they knew that they would be with 70 or 80 really farsighted folks who wanted to work in a bipartisan way.
16:35And then finally, finally, I mean, I'm not going to mention all the staff, and it's dangerous to highlight just three,
16:42but the three that I've spent the most time with over the last three years,
16:45those who have taught me, who have helped me to understand the blind spots,
16:50those who have patiently provided briefing document after briefing document
16:55and legislative draft after legislative draft, and just have been willing to be pushed by me
17:01and been willing to push me.
17:04I mean, Nick and Paul and Allison are just remarkable professionals.
17:08And I know that it is sometimes fun.
17:17The American people are right to criticize a lot about Washington, D.C.,
17:21but I've got to tell you, they have no idea how good and how decent and how smart
17:29the professional staff on both of these committees are,
17:34and what a beautiful blessing they are, and what a great day this is for innovation.
17:41So since the speaker and the leader are not here yet,
17:45anybody have any questions for these great leaders?
17:50Yes, sir.
17:50I remember last year, Chairman Hill, you and I spoke,
17:54and you were actually a little bit surprised about the support for FIT 21.
17:57And this goes back to something all of you guys have touched on.
18:00But for people who may not be following this kind of debate,
18:03how surprised should they be about the Democratic and Republican work on this,
18:07the collaboration you had with both parties and both chambers?
18:11Well, to the staff present and to the members before you today, of course,
18:17it's not surprising, because long before the politics of 2024,
18:22that I read about in certain publications about crypto.
18:28These members and our staffers were in meetings on a bicameral and bipartisan basis,
18:36week in, week out, talking about ideas about where does Web3 go?
18:42What does financial services built on a blockchain mean?
18:46And we had hundreds of meetings, hundreds of industry participant meetings, roundtables.
18:53And I'll say the same is true for our good friends, Senators Gillibrand and Lummis
18:58and Senator Hagerty, and many, I don't, again, I don't want to be in the name game,
19:03but we had that kind of work on both Senate Ag and Senate banking and in our House.
19:10Bicameral, bipartisan from day one.
19:13And I have never made this about politics.
19:17I've made it about American innovation,
19:19and President Trump on the campaign trail made it part of America First.
19:24How do we bring this capital back?
19:26As soon as he learned about blockchain innovation,
19:30operating systems being written on a blockchain,
19:33how to maintain the dominance of the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency,
19:37he began to, it was an evolutionary process for the president,
19:40and he admits that he's talked about it all the time.
19:43It was about learning together.
19:46And so when I look at the board, and I see on clarity 78 Democrats,
19:51we got 71 Democrats on FIT 21 last year in the Biden administration
19:57with no statement of administration policy against it from President Biden.
20:02And today under President Trump, with a statement in support of it,
20:07we got 78.
20:09And on genius coming over from the Senate, 102 Democrats supported genius.
20:14This is about bicameral, bipartisan leadership.
20:18For who?
20:19For the American people and for American innovation.
20:23And I think the voters out there, the citizens out there,
20:26ought to revel when they see this.
20:28But you won't see this covered on cable news at night.
20:33Because we're cherry-picking the fights between Democrats and Republicans.
20:37But every day in my decade on Capitol Hill,
20:42I've seen people just like this that we've lauded today
20:44working together to get to yes on policies that make a difference for our country.
20:50So actually, I didn't know what number to be,
20:54but I knew that my target was to beat FIT 21.
20:59And I made a bet with myself, and I won.
21:04Questions?
21:06Yeah.
21:06Mr. Stile mentioned that you want the Senate
21:10to take up market structure quickly.
21:14What is your sense of how it will fare over there?
21:17And if the Senate, after working on its bill,
21:21gets it through that chamber and overcomes a filibuster
21:25and then says to you folks,
21:28hey, you've got to take ours because we beat the filibuster,
21:32you've got to do this one, how are you going to react?
21:34I'm going to defer to others on the process, but I can tell you this.
21:37The vote total in the House shows massive support across party lines.
21:43It shows the support of the American people to get this right.
21:47And I think it shows the energy that's here.
21:50And to me, that's a sign that the United States Senate
21:53should pick up this legislation and move quickly.
21:56I'm of the belief that this is incredibly well thought through,
21:58well-drafted, and well-prepared legislation.
22:01I'll let anyone else comment on the process.
22:04That's not my expertise.
22:05Well, I'll just add, it's not a partisan issue,
22:08as Chair Hill made very clear.
22:11The goal was to show that.
22:13As these gentlemen have already spoken, we did today.
22:17It is also the White House, it's part of the agenda that they want.
22:22So you've got to remember, we always talk about Republicans and Democrats,
22:26but in this case, we're not.
22:28We're talking about supporters of innovation,
22:31supporters of the 21st century digital age
22:35in making sure that this country is the leader.
22:38And I think the Senate, they showed us they could move genius,
22:41one of the first things they've done in a long time,
22:43and they moved it expeditiously, and it did a great job,
22:46and we're all celebrating it.
22:47I think what you're going to see now,
22:49because they haven't had the history or experience
22:51with the market structure side of things,
22:54that's been a House effort for four, five, six years or more for some people.
23:00I think they need to work through that.
23:02They need a little bit of time to do that,
23:04but I expect that they are going to pick this up and move it.
23:07Whether it's our bill, I expect it's going to be.
23:10They might make some adjustments, but I expect they're going to get it done
23:14and the White House is going to sign it.
23:15The White House has asked for it, so I do expect it to move.
23:19Our bill is perfect.
23:20You got something else?
23:21I don't want to belabor this,
23:24but I've spent as many hours in meetings with Democratic senators on this topic
23:29as I have Republican House members.
23:30This is about moving this policy forward.
23:38And, you know, while I think H.R. 3633 represents six years' worth of work,
23:45has an extraordinary 294 votes in favor of it,
23:49this is exactly what I wanted to commit to Chairman Scott,
23:52Chair Lummis, Cynthia Lummis from Wyoming,
23:55who's the subcommittee chair,
23:56Kristen Gillibrand of New York, who's worked on this tirelessly for years,
24:01Hagerty and group,
24:02that we would deliver in the House,
24:04and we would deliver them a product that reflects ideas from the Senate,
24:07which we did in clarity.
24:09And so my recommendation to Senator Scott is,
24:12you know, let's take up 3633, put it through your process.
24:17Obviously, it's open to amendment.
24:19That's a collaborative process.
24:20What's wrong with Washington is they're not used to a collaborative process.
24:24They're not used to bicameral groups working together.
24:27So, hello, here's a good example,
24:30and let's see what we can get done over the next few weeks.
24:32And I'm with Whip Emmer.
24:35This is a goal of President Trump,
24:37and the Treasury is a part of their effort to make America great again
24:42and get our financial markets into the 21st century.
24:46And I have every confidence that we'll work together.
24:48If you want to add to that, speak from an active proposal.
24:51Well, I guess I will belabor the point.
24:53Yeah, do it.
24:54Yeah.
24:55Well, I think French actually hit on my first point.
24:59We didn't write this in a vacuum.
25:02We wrote this in a tripartisan way.
25:05Even beyond that, I guess, in a bicameral way.
25:08We work with Republicans.
25:11We work with Democrats.
25:11We work with the industry, key stakeholders,
25:14you know, folks that would be impacted,
25:16or who are impacted in this digital asset ecosystem.
25:21Everybody was welcome to the table
25:23and has been going back on the agriculture side at least seven years.
25:29A shout-out to former Agriculture Chairman Mike Conaway,
25:33who really took the tip of the spear on this during his tenure
25:37as Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee.
25:39And so we've, this is not new to the members of the U.S. Senate.
25:45You know, we've had members of the U.S. Senate write really good, nice things
25:50about the Clarity Act when it was pending.
25:53The other point I want to make is how important this is
25:56and why the Senate, it's just a necessity of it.
25:59You know, we helped to refine the Genius Act within Clarity.
26:05Probably about five provisions that are in that
26:08that are specifically meant to refine some points
26:11that needed to be a little bit of improvement,
26:13a little bit of refinement.
26:15And so Genius, which will be law tomorrow afternoon
26:19when President Trump puts a signature on it,
26:21needs clarity to pass,
26:23not just for those few points of refinement,
26:27but also because it's the infrastructure.
26:32It's the market infrastructure.
26:33There's my good friend, French Hill,
26:35and I'm going to use this when I go back home, French.
26:37I can't help myself.
26:38You did such a great job of...
26:40There's no charge.
26:40Okay, I appreciate that.
26:42They compare Genius without Clarity
26:44as like having a cell phone without cell towers.
26:49Clarity or Genius Act,
26:52what will be Genius Law tomorrow afternoon,
26:54needs clarity to really do its full function.
26:59We've got time for one more.
27:01I have a question for Chairman Hill.
27:04Actually, two questions related to the Fed.
27:08That's two?
27:08Only one question?
27:09No, go ahead.
27:10Sorry.
27:11The second one, I think you'll like.
27:13The second one.
27:15He'll take the second one.
27:18Then fine.
27:18If it's a cafeteria, I'll take the second plate.
27:21First of all, the President said yesterday
27:25that he would only fire Jerome Powell for a cause.
27:29Do you think there's any circumstance
27:31in which the President could and should fire the Fed chair?
27:35As I've said many times,
27:37and I'm quoting President Trump
27:38and I'm quoting Treasury's second, Besson,
27:41he's not going to fire Jay Powell,
27:42and I don't believe he can fire Jay Powell.
27:44Jay Powell's term is up as chairman next spring.
27:47President Trump also has a vacancy coming up earlier in the winter
27:51that he can add a governor,
27:53and I think that's the bottom line.
27:55Any concerns about the rhetoric against Jay Powell,
27:59what that's doing to the markets?
28:00Well, I would be happy to meet with you offline
28:03and walk you through Lyndon Johnson's audio tapes
28:06from the Oval Office
28:07or Richard Nixon's berating of Arthur Burns
28:10or Ronald Reagan dragging Alan Greenspan into the office
28:15and sitting there silently while Jim Baker berates him,
28:18but I won't go through that historic premise.
28:20Having an independent monetary and an independent Fed
28:24created in 1913 by Congress
28:26does not mean the organization's not subject to criticism and critique,
28:31and so I think that's been a part of American history,
28:34certainly since the Truman administration.
28:36And then just something related to this legislation.
28:38That's a third one.
28:39Wow.
28:40Related to this piece of legislation,
28:41there was concern about the Fed establishing
28:44a centralized crypto bank.
28:47Right.
28:47Those concerns have obviously been voiced.
28:49How real is that kind of situation?
28:52Is that something that you are concerned about?
28:56Well, I do believe Article I,
28:59as I said on the House floor today,
29:00governs how the money is issued
29:03and the value of that money,
29:04and it's an Article I power.
29:06But I'm going to ask Whip Emmer,
29:09who has spent years studying this issue
29:11and thinking about it,
29:12who led our bill to respond directly to that question.
29:15Yeah, I'm going to tell you,
29:17we do have a serious concern about it.
29:19In fact, the internal discussion
29:21over the delay of 30-some hours
29:24was related directly to that.
29:27It's interesting that over the last five or six years,
29:30some of the people in this room were writing articles
29:33about how the U.S. is falling behind in this space.
29:37Look at China.
29:38They have the digital yuan.
29:39They're speeding ahead of us.
29:41Well, nobody stopped to think about the fact
29:43that China has been using the digital yuan
29:46as a financial surveillance tool.
29:49They're building social scores on their citizens
29:52based on their purchases.
29:53The federal government should never have
29:56a central bank digital currency
29:58that could be used to surveil Americans' actions.
30:02The other thing I will tell you,
30:03the second your government does that,
30:06the traditional banking system is at risk
30:08because you will suddenly have
30:11the government issuing bank accounts
30:14and all the rest of the stuff.
30:15That is not an American value.
30:18And again, unless and until
30:20they can create a central bank digital currency
30:24that is open, permissionless,
30:27and private with a capital P,
30:30it should never be a part
30:34of the government's toolbox, ever.
30:38Thank you all very much.
30:39Thanks.
30:39Thanks.