WASHINGTON—Yesterday, United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Appropriations and Banking Committees and former U.S. Ambassador to Japan, joined The Bottom Line on Fox Businessto discuss the Senate’s work on President Donald Trump’s legislative priorities, efforts to confirm key nominees, and the next phase of cryptocurrency market structure legislation following the passage of the GENIUS Act.
Partial Transcript
Hagerty on the August recess and public support for the Big Beautiful Bill: “I’m certainly here ready to work through the weekends, ready to work into the recess that we have scheduled. We do have a communication challenge ahead because the Democrats and their liberal media partisan allies have been out telling a story that’s not true about this bill. The elements of this bill are very popular with the United States of America– extending the tax cuts, no tax on tips, and no tax on overtime. If you think about beefing up the military and securing our border, these are all things that the American public not only wants, but they voted for. There’s a lot of good to talk about, and we need to get back to talk about it. But I appreciate the opportunity to do that here. And right now, the American public is already seeing the benefit. The stock market is at an all-time high. We’re seeing great concessions being made by countries all over the world to do more business with America, more investments taking place in America, and blue-collar wages are back on the rise again. On a real and inflation-adjusted basis, blue-collar wages are up again, like they were back when President Trump was in office before. That certainly was not the case when Joe Biden was in office. We have a lot of good news to sell.”
Hagerty on staying in Washington to work on nominee confirmations: “I think we’re going to stay here and work. That’s what the President wants us to do. This would not be necessary— and I want to be clear about this— were it not for the maximum resistance campaign that the Democrats have put in place. This is unprecedented in terms of the number of procedural hoops they have forced us to step through, because their overarching objective is to keep President Trump from seeding his cabinet, from putting his team on the ground. Despite all of their efforts, President Trump keeps winning time and time again. Our border is secure, our economy is moving in the right direction, trade deals are coming in— we’re still winning. It would be even better if we could get our team on the ground. The Democrats are trying to stop us, and we’re just going to have to keep plowing right through. So I’m here to work, through the weekends, whatever it takes to get the team on the field.”
Hagerty on his market structure bill: “I take a great deal of pride in my legislation, the GENIUS Act. The stablecoin bill will actually open the market for digital currencies here in the United States. It puts us and our payment system into the 21st century. It brings dollar dominance into the digital arena, so that the dollar will dominate. That’s what we have to do to make certain that we stay ahead as a nation. That opens the door then for market structure, which broadens the web and allows us to reach into this innovative market. Innovation needs to take place here in the United States, and additional market structure legislation is necessary. We put a discussion draft out this week that gives a broad outline of how we want to approach it, how we’re going to define the various types of cryptocurrencies, and whether securities and or commodities should be regulated by banks, the SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission], or the CFTC [Commodity Futures Trading Commission].”
Hagerty on efficiency and market benefits of blockchain: “We’re requesting more input from the industry, and I expect to get a tremendous amount of input here. We’re looking to move this along as quickly as possible. I’m looking at the end of September as a target deadline to get this done. This creates the opportunity to drive down costs and improve efficiency. When thinking about the speed of transactions on the blockchain, the efficiency here is enormous. It takes out counterparty risk, reduces float in the system, removes friction, and delivers great economies of scale as it unfolds.”
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