House Majority Whip Tom Emmer has been waiting a long time for this week.
Emmer is one of Washington’s oldest supporters of the crypto industry. Now, the sector is on the verge of some major legislative triumphs.
Emmer talks about crypto like few other lawmakers. The Minnesota Republican came to believe in the sector long before its government advocates professionalized.
“This is an incredibly disruptive, and potentially destructive, technology,” Emmer told us.
We sat down with Emmer Monday evening to talk about crypto, Washington writ large and President Donald Trump’s expanding crypto empire.
The stakes. Emmer has been pushing crypto legislation for a while.
“Over the past four years, I think you saw what not having that clarity did,” Emmer said. “You had every single regulator claiming jurisdiction over every single project, it seemed like. That just has a needless amount of confusion.”
What does that actually mean for everyone else? We asked Emmer what his vision for the financial system was post-crypto legislation. Could crypto replace the traditional financial system?
The majority whip answered in two parts. Emmer first said that crypto could enhance the existing financial system.
“It’s imperative that we make sure that our existing two-tier legacy financial system, with the best capital markets the world knows, are allowed not only to exist, but to have a chance to evolve into the 21st century,” Emmer said.
But Emmer doesn’t have too much love for the current framework either.
“I don’t think we should be in the business of trying to protect, forever and ad nauseam, in perpetuity, the existing system,” Emmer said. “But you have to have some guardrails.”
The Senate. House leaders, Emmer included, pushed to make changes to the GENIUS Act before sending the stablecoin bill to the White House. Ultimately, the House settled to vote on an unchanged GENIUS Act this Thursday. But the latest version of the CLARITY Act contains tweaks to GENIUS.
Emmer’s not worried about the rigmarole. “Everything in the GENIUS Act, and everything in the CLARITY Act, I understand has been signed off on by the White House,” the majority whip said.
After this week, if the House passes the CLARITY Act, major crypto action will shift back to the Senate. Emmer is nonplussed.
“Give them an opportunity to digest it and if they think there are some nuances, some minor things that need to be done, great,” Emmer said. “We just need to have them both.”
The president. We asked Emmer to weigh in on the Trump family’s crypto investments.
Specifically, is it harmful to the crypto industry to have the president’s family fortune increasingly entrenched with it? Did Emmer have any reservations?
“I know it’s your job to ask these questions,” Emmer replied. “But I’ve got to tell you, Trump’s family was incredibly successful before Donald Trump was president.”
“I’d prefer to focus on the fact that when we talk about digital assets, whether that’s crypto or other, this is not a Republican or Democratic issue,” Emmer added. “This is an American issue.”
