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Floor Speech

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Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, you never know what you are going to find these days when you are reflecting on the Trump administration and our oversight responsibilities as the Congress.

It is true that things have changed. Some people might call me old- fashioned for thinking this way, but I think we were a lot better off when we had Presidents who took it as a matter of course that they shouldn't use their office to enrich themselves, and they should put behind them conflicts of interest that raise questions about whether or not they are serving their own interests or their families' interests or the interests of the people of the United States.

That is why Ronald Reagan put, I think, his wealth, which was considerable, into a blind trust. Jimmy Carter, I think, sold maybe his farm or put that in a trust.

I realize it is part of Donald Trump's political charm that he wants to wear his corruption on his sleeve, but that doesn't mean that we have to go along with it, even if some people are entertained by it, which I am not.

And we have a great example of thinking about our responsibility versus his complete lack of integrity when it comes to the service of his public duties and his private interests.

That is the bill--the so-called GENIUS Act--that is on the floor of the Senate right now, where we are considering whether or not to regulate stablecoins, which are part of the cryptocurrency universe that is new to all of us, certainly in this Chamber and across the country.

I believe very strongly that no President and no Vice President, no Member of Congress, no high-ranking official of our government should be in the business of issuing cryptocurrency, including the stablecoin. And they shouldn't be in the business of pumping them up like some sort of speculator, which is what we are seeing happen, sometimes outside the White House or in the White House.

I saw, the other day, that the President was having a dinner at Mar- a-Lago to reward the people who had been bidding up his meme coins, and they even came to dinner, although he apparently didn't really show for that dinner.

But the legislation we have in front of us would be the first regulations of stablecoins that have ever been done. I think, as part of that, it would be very appropriate for us to say that the President should get out of this business and that any President should be out of the business of issuing their own coins.

It is a weird part of the nature of this asset--this new digital asset--that it is very volatile. The meme coins rise and they fall as part of their price, and the stablecoins are used as a way of transacting around that volatility. But the volatility, every single day, is still captured in this market, and it just seems like a crazy moment when we are living in a time when a President could influence his own net worth to the tune of billions of dollars, just based on pumping up the value of digital currency that he has put out there in the world with his name or that somebody else has put out there in the world with his name.

That is why, yesterday, I offered an amendment to the bill, to the GENIUS Act, that would preclude any President--this President or any other President or any Vice President--from issuing stablecoins. I hope we will consider that amendment on the floor of the Senate. I hope we will vote to pass it, if we are, indeed, going to pass this legislation. And I hope we will have other amendments we consider as well.

I think that the questions that are at issue here from an ethics point of view, from a corruption point of view, go far beyond just the stablecoin. They go to cryptocurrency, generally, and what the President is doing to inflate the value of coins that are issued in his name, whether he has issued them or whether he hasn't.

I look forward to the debate that we are going to have. I think this is an opportunity for us to say that we want to elevate the requirements that each one of us has agreed to live under, as Members of this body and people elected to act in the public interest. I believe the President and his Vice President should face the same standard and the same scrutiny. That is why I offered the amendment that I have.

I hope that, as our colleagues consider the debate that we are going to have, that others will come to the floor with their ideas to strengthen this legislation and make sure that people don't abuse their public office for their own personal economic gain.

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