Richard Blumenthal

Not analysed yet

A requested analysis is usually ready within half an hour; come back to this page or reload it.

Mr. President, I am here, thinking about all the Americans who are working on manufacturing plant assembly lines, of all the Americans who are teaching our kids in school or who are patrolling our streets as police or who are working in our hospitals--all of the hard-working Americans who are just working to get by, to make ends meet, to know whether they can afford another $20 or $30 at the supermarket. Then to think of Donald Trump's making $6 million per day last year-- a total of $2.2 billion just in the first year of his Presidency--I don't think there is a single person in America who thinks that he earned that money. And how could he? He is supposed to be devoting every waking moment to the public interest of the United States--to keeping us safe and our Nation secure. The fact is that it was the result of corruption as $1.4 billion of it came from crypto. The point of this legislation is, essentially, to end that corruption. We will vote tomorrow on a crypto bill that is, sadly and tragically, riddled with loopholes that enable him to continue this same self-dealing and self-enrichment. The failure to stand up to the President, I think, is going to be on our Republican colleagues because this amendment--ethics requirements for digital assets--is a sham; it is a charade. If nothing else, Republicans should take a stand and say: In crypto legislation that is supposed to stop wrongdoing, lawlessness, and the funding of terrorist organizations and money laundering, now is the time to also impose a strong conflict-of-interest rule--the Ending Presidential Corruption in Banking Act. Think of it for a moment, the Ending Presidential Corruption in Banking Act, it bans the President and the Vice President and their immediate families from owning or controlling banks. When I came to the U.S. Senate, if you had told me I would be supporting an Ending Presidential Corruption in Banking Act because it would be necessary to stop corruption and because the President would be twisting and ignoring and bending norms and precedents of the Presidency, I would have said: That would never happen in the United States of America. But President Trump has been clear: There is no ethical line separating his role as President from his family's businesses. It is that simple. Corruption has become the family business. After President Trump issued an Executive order to assert control over the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, his control over that body--which approves bank charters--surprise, Trump's crypto company, World Liberty Financial, applied for a bank charter. And, no surprise, on August 14, 2026, World Liberty Financial was granted conditional approval for a national bank charter. Corruption has consequences. It has costs. That bank charter is worth millions--maybe hundreds of millions--to World Liberty Financial, but it will enable World Liberty Financial to exploit and take advantage of consumers that will cost them money out of those hard-earned wages that they make. In fact, Donald Trump made $1.4 billion, including 636 million from his meme coin, but nearly a million Americans lost billions of dollars--more than $3 billion--while he was making his huge profits. Corruption has consequences. It has costs. When the President of the United States is dealing with the Emiratis, who have bought a 49- percent share for billions of dollars in one of his enterprises, and then the Emiratis receive approval for the purchase of chips that have been refused them or defense equipment that is hugely valuable to them, it threatens our national security. And when the President's son or his family go around the world establishing resorts, making deals, there is always a quid pro quo. There is always a quid to the quo. There is no free lunch. Our security is compromised. There are costs to our taxpayers. And that plane that was supposedly a gift is already costing us hundreds of millions of dollars, not to mention our being beholden to the Qatar Government. There is no free lunch. After Donald Trump, Jr., became a partner of the venture capital firm 1789 Capital, its assets ballooned to $3 billion as its portfolio companies rapidly received lucrative government contracts. Those government contracts impact the taxpayers when they are sole source, when they are granted without proper review and scrutiny and oversight of what the costs will be to taxpayers. There is no free lunch. So this measure is not only important, it is necessary. And I have to say, the consequences of corruption are measured not only in dollars and cents but also in our moral standing around the world. Just this morning, ProPublica reported that Donald Trump, Jr.'s, lavish wedding in the Caribbean was, in effect, heavily bankrolled by a Russian oligarch with close ties to Putin. His name is Umar Kremlev. Umar Kremlev is also involved in an organization that reeducates Ukrainian children who have been abducted. I have been to Ukraine 11 times. On a number of those trips, I have met with children who have been abducted and kidnapped by Vladimir Putin. It is the reason he has been judged and charged as a war criminal. And one of his henchmen, apparently, is Umar Kremlev in reeducating those children so that they will forget their past, forget their language, forget their culture, forget their religion. This is truly criminal. And Kremlev has paid likely hundreds of thousands of dollars for Donald Junior's lavish wedding. He is in a photograph of the wedding party. That picture haunts me. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. And the picture of a man who has, in effect, been complicit in abducting and reeducating children, separating them--and not just a few but literally tens of thousands, as many as 35,000, maybe 50,000 or more--separating them from their families. I wouldn't want to be caught on the same island with him, let alone having him rent the island for a wedding of a family member. Let me put it another way: Those Americans who are working hard to make ends meet, wondering whether they can afford another $20 or $30 at the supermarket while Donald Trump averaged $6 million a day in 2025, ought to demand of all of us that we pass the Ending Presidential Corruption in Banking Act. It is the least we can do. It is a first step. And I hope that we will also pass a crypto measure that is worthy of this body and its name. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Moreno). The Senator from Wyoming.