Chris Murphy: 'No One To Blame But Ourselves' If Senate Grants Trump Ethics Exemption On Crypto Bill

Forbes Breaking News

On Sunday, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) spoke to CNN's Dana Bash about legislation in the Senate that currently grants President Trump an ethics exemption to issue cryptocurrency while in office.

Transcript

00:00I do want to ask on a different topic about the president and the fact that he hosted a private

00:06dinner for top investors of his cryptocurrency last month. I know you've been very outspoken

00:11about the president's use of his meme coin, calling it corruption on steroids and more,

00:18but I want to talk about the consequence of Congress, really, not legislating regulations

00:26about this crypto and so many other issues. Is there some, I'm not saying that Congress is

00:32culpable for what the president is doing, but on issues like this, does there need to be regulation?

00:44Absolutely. And we have a chance right now in the United States Senate to stop the president's

00:50corruption. Not coincidentally, we are debating in the Senate a bill to regulate cryptocurrency.

00:56In fact, one of the very cryptocurrencies that Donald Trump is issuing as part of his corruption

01:02scheme. The problem is the existing version of that bill exempts the president from the ethics

01:08requirements. It says that it's unethical for me to issue or market a stable coin, but it's okay for

01:14the president to do it. That's not something any Democrat should vote for. We have a chance to

01:19demand to amend that bill before final passage to make sure that the president is treated just like

01:26every other member of Congress, just like every other member of his administration. So yes,

01:31if Congress passes a bill in the next few weeks that exempts the president of the United States

01:37from the ethics requirements around the issuance of cryptocurrency, then yes, we will have no one

01:43to blame but ourselves for this, at least this specific kind of corruption. So we have a chance

01:50to get this right in the United States Senate this coming week. And I hope the Democrats and Republicans

01:57can stand up and say, it's just not right for the president to essentially be asking for people,

02:04including foreigners, to put money in his pocket in order to get them access to the White House.

02:09That is not okay for a member of Congress, for a mayor. It's not okay for a president.

02:15Okay. We will be watching that. Thank you so much, Senator. I appreciate you coming on.

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