Congress
Trump calls on House GOP to quickly adopt ‘clean’ version of Senate-passed crypto bill
President Donald Trump called on House Republicans late Wednesday to move “LIGHTNING FAST” to send Senate-passed cryptocurrency legislation to his desk, dialing up pressure on GOP lawmakers in the lower chamber to adopt the measure without any changes.
Trump wrote on social media site Truth Social Wednesday evening that the House should pass a “clean” version of the Senate bill as soon as possible. His post comes as a warning shot to House Republicans — including Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) — who are weighing how much to change the Senate bill and whether to include it in a larger package of crypto legislation that would be sent back to the upper chamber.
“Get it to my desk, ASAP — NO DELAYS, NO ADD ONS,” Trump wrote.
The post comes one day after the Senate passed the crypto bill in question, which would create the first-ever U.S. regulatory framework for digital tokens known as stablecoins that are pegged to the value of the dollar.
House Republicans are on board with passing stablecoin legislation, but they may be reluctant to rubber-stamp the Senate’s bill, known as the GENIUS Act. GOP lawmakers in the lower chamber have introduced their own stablecoin legislation that is similar to the Senate-passed bill, but several key differences remain. The House measure cleared the Financial Services Committee in April.
“The Senate just passed an incredible Bill that is going to make America the UNDISPUTED Leader in Digital Assets — Nobody will do it better, it is pure GENIUS!” Trump wrote. “Digital Assets are the future, and our Nation is going to own it. We are talking about MASSIVE Investment, and Big Innovation.”
Hill, who has pushed for years to advance industry-friendly crypto legislation in the House, is also weighing the best way to get multiple digital assets bills across the finish line this year. He has been considering packaging stablecoin legislation with a second, larger measure — seen as the crown jewel of the GOP-led push to boost the crypto industry — that would divvy up oversight of digital assets between market regulators.
A spokesperson for Hill, Brooke Nethercott, said in a statement Wednesday that the Arkansas Republican looks “forward to continued collaboration with our members and House leadership as we work toward a path forward.”
Some House Republicans fear that simply passing the Senate stablecoin bill — even if it is reconciled with the House version — would take momentum away from the push to adopt so-called market structure legislation, which impacts a bigger swath of the crypto industry than the stablecoin measure.
In the Senate, though, Republicans are eager to quickly notch a legislative win by getting their stablecoin bill to Trump’s desk. The bill was the subject of months of turbulent negotiations, and senators fear that a cumbersome larger crypto package would be difficult to pass through the upper chamber, where Democratic votes are needed to clear a 60-vote threshold.
Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), the lead sponsor of the Senate stablecoin bill, said in an interview last week that his “goal is just to put a win in place for the American public and have it for the president to sign before the Fourth of July.”
“It’s very clear to me that we have an opportunity to have a great win here for the American public right now,” he said. “If the bill were to be modified [to include market structure legislation], it would have to come back to the Senate for a lot of work.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton raised $18 million in the third quarter of 2026 across his campaign and his joint fundraising committees, his campaign tells Blue Light News, a significant haul for the homestretch of the election.
Paxton’s number is double his $9 million second-quarter total, and signals Republican donors are rallying behind their Texas nominee. The campaign did not provide a current cash-on-hand total.
Democrat James Talarico’s campaign has yet to release his fundraising totals for the quarter. He raised $30 million last quarter.
“We now have the resources to make sure every Texan sees Talarico’s radical record between now and Election Day,” said Nick Maddux, senior adviser to the Paxton campaign.
The past quarter — the first full reporting period after Paxton’s primary runoff victory in May — saw Republicans flock to Texas for their midterm convention, which featured pro-Paxton fundraisers on the sidelines. Last week, the Paxton campaign announced a massive $20 million ad buy across the state, one of the largest-ever single media investments in a Texas Senate race.
Paxton needs the money: In a recording of a private donor event last month shared with POLITICO, he said he has “never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign,” pointing to influence “from D.C.”
Texas has emerged as a huge money suck for Senate Republicans, who have poured tens of millions into the state to aid Paxton. Senate Leadership Fund, their top super PAC, has spent or reserved well over $100 million in the state to date, and the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. and its affiliates plan to spend near $45 million in the state through Oct. 12.
Paxton has acknowledged that money has changed the race’s narrative: In a recording of a private donor event last monthshared with POLITICO, he said he has “never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign,” pointing to influence “from D.C.”
Most recent public polling shows Talarico with a small lead in the race in spite of the recent onslaught in GOP spending, though Paxton’s campaign released an internal poll last week showing Paxton leading by three points.
Sen. Raphael Warnock is hitting the road for the last month before Election Day.
The Georgia Democrat’s final midterm campaign surrogate sprint will only increase chatter around the possibility that he might run for president in 2028, according to a nine-stop itinerary shared first with Blue Light News.
First, he’ll touch down in New Hampshire on Tuesday before hitting Nevada on Wednesday. Next, he’ll travel to South Carolina (Oct. 13), Mississippi (Oct. 14), North Carolina (Oct. 15), South Carolina (Oct. 16-17), Michigan (Oct. 20-21), Wisconsin (Oct. 23) and Ohio (Oct. 24-26).
“Senator Reverend Warnock will be hitting the trail to energize voters who are sick of the President enriching himself while ordinary people continue to pay more for everything,” a spokesperson told Playbook. “Tapping into the righteous anger that voters are feeling across the country, the pastor in the Senate will again make the campaign trail his pulpit: calling out Trump’s corruption, while leaving voters hopeful for the next generation of Democratic leadership.”
Asked recently at the Texas Tribune Festival about whether he would run for president, Warnock said: “We’ll see what happens.”
Democrats are eager to win back subpoena power if they retake Congress, but they’re split on how hard they’ll go after corporate America.
The party is united by the idea of aggressive oversight of President Donald Trump’s administration, which will help shape their messaging in the run-up to the 2028 election. But Democrats are at odds over how fiercely to use their probing power to go after the corporations, law firms and universities that courted the White House over the past two years.
“We don’t want to turn into a banana republic where you lose an election and it’s all about retribution,” Rep. Bill Foster, a senior member of the Financial Services Committee, said.
“We’re going to have to be a little bit wise about when companies simply did something they had to do to survive this unprecedented level of corruption, compared to companies that actually got on board and profited more by being a partner in his corruption,” he added.
Some progressives counter that a restrained approach would sit uneasily with the party’s base.
“It would be political suicide for Democrats to campaign on fighting corruption and then turn around and go easy on the very companies that are facilitating it,” said Ella Fanger, corporate power policy adviser at the liberal nonprofit group Demand Progress.
Prime targets for some Democrats are the tech companies that have taken steps to be on the president’s good side, like Apple, Amazon and Meta, which have all donated to Trump’s ballroom effort. Major cryptocurrency players, including Coinbase, Ripple and Tether also chipped in for the ballroom, and will be subject to questioning from Democrats.
The late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s networks and associates are also poised for probes — a push that has ensnared big banks like JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and Bank of America in the past.
Sen. Chris Murphy said the party should focus on the nexus between Trump and corporate corruption.
“We should get to the bottom of the corrupt relationship that exists between corporations in this country and the Trump administration,” Murphy said, pointing to questions he’s posed about a tobacco company’s donation to Trump’s super PAC before new e-cigarette rules were unveiled.
Still, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, who serves on Senate Banking, warned against the weaponization of power.
“Our focus should be solving problems that we’re seeing happening,” she said, pointing to cost-of-living issues around health care, housing and energy.
What else we’re watching:
— FIRST IN IC: BUILD AMERICA CAUCUS AGENDA — Energized by progress on permitting and housing legislation this term, a bipartisan development-focused caucus is rolling out a detailed agenda for next term. The 40-member Build America Caucus is releasing a 95-page package of proposals, first shared with Blue Light News, that outlines plans touching on health care, transportation, child care and research. The group launched last year with the goal of cutting red tape and regulatory bottlenecks to spur development.
— AI COLLAB STILL ILLUSIVE FOR CRUZ, CANTWELL — Commerce Chair Ted Cruz and ranking member Maria Cantwell might still be celebrating Senate passage of their landmark college sports bill last week, but it’s unclear the momentum will carry forward to agreement on another committee priority: artificial intelligence. Among the dozen lawmakers, aides and industry experts who spoke to Blue Light News, few expect the two senators to shed their well-established ideologies and styles after the mutual win. That could doom their ability to replicate their latest achievement in something as complex and divisive as an AI regulatory framework.
Jasper Goodman, Katherine Hapgood, Riley Rogerson and Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.
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