📝 The Readback: Crypto craziness

IN THIS EDITION

It’s me, hi, it’s the problem, my beat

Fourth vote-a-rama highlights ugly summer in D.C.

A night of softball and camaraderie

The politics of immigration and the border

THE TOP

It’s me, hi, it’s the problem, my beat

Welcome to The Readback, our weekend digest featuring the best of Punchbowl News this week. Here we share a quick roundup of some of our scoops, analysis and Capitol Hill insight you won’t find anywhere else. We’ve also included a few of our favorite outside reads from the week.

Crypto craziness: This week, I had the distinct privilege of watching the financial services beat turn the House of Representatives on its head. Sorry!

Crypto Week didn’t go so hot for House Republican leadership. We lost two whole legislative days of floor time to a conservative rebellion revolving around an acronym that 90% of our audience had never heard of before Tuesday – CBDCs, or central bank digital currencies.

The end result was a win for crypto. The House sent the GENIUS Act to the White House, where President Donald Trump signed it into law Friday afternoon. We also saw a huge bipartisan vote on the CLARITY Act, sending a crypto market structure overhaul to the Senate with broad buy-in.

The process, however, was an unrelenting disaster. Leadership owns that, as it owns every time a rule vote fails on the House floor.

On the other hand: This was one weird fight.

Conservatives like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) only announced their opposition to the Republican legislative strategy to advance three crypto bills minutes before the rule first came to the floor. The core complaint was that leadership wasn’t doing enough to ensure the Federal Reserve couldn’t issue a digital dollar, despite trying to get a bill to the floor that would do that.

Ultimately, this wasn’t really a fight about crypto. This was a leadership fight with a crypto dressing. Plenty of members are simply pissed about the Senate’s penchant for jamming the House.

I’ll say this much: I believe the ten or so conservatives who bucked this process earnestly believed that attaching anti-CDBC language to a broader crypto package could help it become law in the Senate.

The problem is that those conservatives are wrong. The Senate has already rolled the House on crypto policy this year. Tacking on a red-meat priority like the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act would have cost the CLARITY Act precious Democratic votes in the House.

The Senate filibuster means Democrats need to be involved to get any of this legislation across the finish line. That’s given the chamber maximum leverage on crypto policy.

Which is why committee leaders like Reps. French Hill (R-Ark.) and GT Thompson (R-Pa.) have organized their approach to market structure reform around speed and soft power.

The CLARITY Act cleared the House before the Senate could even put a draft together. Enacting the legislation with nearly 80 Democrats proves the fundamental structure of the CLARITY Act is politically viable in the Senate, at least as a starting point.

And what did conservatives get for the trouble? A half-baked proposal to get the CBDC prohibitions into the defense authorization process. Good luck with that one, guys. The Senate isn’t holding its breath.

What I’m reading: Dedicated Readback readers know I’ve been on a bit of a fantasy and sci-fi bender over the last year. But I’m trying to mix it up this week with “The Origins of Totalitarianism” by Hannah Arendt. Not exactly a beach read! But it feels good to dust off my college degree by making my way through a proper treatise. Send your favorite polemics to [email protected].

– Brendan Pedersen

You can find The Readback in your inbox every Saturday at 8 a.m. And don’t hesitate to reach out to [email protected] with feedback. Enjoy The Readback.

Fourth vote-a-rama highlights ugly summer in D.C.

The Senate had its fourth vote-a-rama of the year this week, and it’s safe to say senators are sick of them. And probably of each other, too.

With about two weeks until the August recess, senators are making clear they’re ready for some time away from the Capitol.

Senators have had very few recesses this year as Majority Leader John Thune has pursued an aggressive and record-breaking schedule of votes. On top of that, President Donald Trump’s return to the White House has made for some, shall we say, unprecedented moments that have sometimes eroded cross-party relationships.

This week might have been a breaking point.

The vote-a-rama, which preceded final passage of the White House’s $9 billion rescissions package, lasted throughout Wednesday night and ended around 2:30 a.m. Thursday with a vote on final passage. Usually, senators leave town for the week after vote-a-ramas. This time, they came back the next morning for committee meetings and, later, several floor votes.

After all that, everyone, myself included, was running on little sleep, which didn’t help.

Intense verbal clashes broke out at the Senate Appropriations Committee as senators accused each other of not being trustworthy. There’s a ton of bad blood over the appropriations process post-rescissions, and the threat of a shutdown is high.

Democrats walked out of a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting where Republicans pressed forward with a vote on a controversial judicial nominee. Then the Jeffrey Epstein arguments made their way over to the Senate floor with a unanimous consent request that got tense.

It’s not all doom and gloom in the eyes of some senators, though. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) dismissed the idea that this week’s tensions symbolize a broader breakdown of personal relationships in the chamber, saying folks are just “cranky.”

“When I worked at the Supreme Court, at the end of the term, which is always in June, people were hardly speaking to each other. They were sick of each other,” Hawley said.

For many, August can’t come soon enough.

What I’m watching: Despite my complaints about who was (and wasn’t) selected for this year’s MLB All-Star Game, I actually thought the format this year was quite innovative. The “swing-off” was so fun to watch — and not just because Kyle Schwarber won it for the National League.

— Andrew Desiderio

A night of softball and camaraderie

I never thought sports would be something that I would have to cover as a reporter on the Hill. Yet, there I was on a Wednesday night at Audi Field in a crowd of political buffs, staffers and journalists, watching lawmakers and members of the press playing softball.

The Congressional Women’s Softball Game is an annual, (semi) friendly softball game between female journalists and lawmakers to raise money for the Young Survival Coalition, a nonprofit organization supporting young adults with breast cancer.

Fans showed up repping publication merch, congressional office-specific shirts, and homemade signs. Some of my favorites were “Hitting home runs on the field and in the aisle” and the various “That’s my boss!” placards from congressional offices. Punchbowl News’ own Mica Soellner played on the press team, Bad News Babes.

Watching the game was a fun way to get to know Congress beyond politics, and I made a few observations:

First, Congress is scary good at softball. Shout out to Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.) and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) — I’m glad I’m only chasing you in the hallways and not on the field.

Second, members of Congress have a lot of lore. At the beginning of the game, the announcers gave short introductions of the players. A fun fact I learned: Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.) was a food critic and blogger before coming to the Hill. I’ll make sure to ask Bice next time I run into her what her restaurant recommendations are and report back.

Third, lawmakers really love their ball games. Despite a more than six-hour-long crypto voting session in the House (that was still going on during the game) and the rescissions vote-a-rama in the Senate (also ongoing throughout the event), the game started on time. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and others showed up to watch.

While the game ended in a technical win for Team Congress due to the rain, I believe the press team would have made a comeback if given the chance (I swear I’m not biased…). Either way, it was fun to attend the event and see staffers, journalists and lawmakers come together and have fun amidst a crazy summer session.

What I’m watching: “Love Island: Beyond the Villa.” I got pulled onto the Love Island train last year, so this spin-off series is right up my alley. Bring on the drama!

– Kenzie Nguyen

The politics of immigration and the border

Immigration is always a difficult topic, and under President Donald Trump, the issue has become tougher even for some Republicans.

From his initial idea of mounting a wall on the southern border back in 2015 to his return to office, where he’s issued numerous border-related executive orders, Trump hasn’t softened on this issue.

Now, some Republicans are privately – and publicly – becoming uncomfortable with the extreme push on immigration, especially with the lines getting blurred on restricting illegal and legal immigration.

I recently wrote about how Zohran Mamdani’s primary victory in the New York City mayor’s race sparked new conversations among Hill Republicans about immigration. Mamdani is a Ugandan-born U.S. citizen. Still, conservatives like Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) quickly said they wanted to find ways to curb mass legal immigration.

This week, I wrote about how House Republicans are looking to bring back their signature “H.R.2” border bill that passed the House last Congress. That bill would add restrictions on asylum and tighten controls at the southern border.

However, from talking to more moderate and electorally vulnerable Republicans, there doesn’t seem to be much appetite for putting more restrictive immigration bills on the floor.

Some have even gone as far as backing a bipartisan immigration bill that would create a pathway to legal status for undocumented immigrants who have been living in the country for a long time. The Dignity Act, led by Reps. Maria Salazar (R-Fla.) and Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), has about 20 cosponsors from both parties.

Here’s what Salazar had to say about her bill:

Of course, there’s little chance this bill is going to be taken up by Republican leadership or have the White House’s support. Still, it will be interesting to watch the growing bipartisan support and see where it leads.

What I’m watching: I’ve been listening to Reneé Rapp ahead of the release of her new album “Bite Me” coming out in August.

– Mica Soellner