Several senators will meet with President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday afternoon to discuss progress on a sweeping cryptocurrency regulatory bill, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) said in an interview.
Negotiations on the Clarity Act have gone back and forth for months. One of the legislation’s biggest unresolved issues involves an ethics provision seeking to address Trump’s business ties to the crypto industry. The measure is a requirement for Senate Democrats, whose support is necessary to pass the bill through the chamber.
Moreno said a group of senators will give the president an update about the bill and its “path to success.”
“We’ll be talking about the entirety of the bill. I mean, obviously the president’s been very engaged in this bill,” said Moreno, who has been involved in negotiations over the bill. “He’s the one who’s really driven the innovation that I think will pay dividends.”
A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), a key architect of the legislation, will also be in attendance, according to a Senate Republican aide granted anonymity to discuss the closed-door meeting.
Lawmakers are racing to pass the bill before the August recess, after which midterm election politics will make it difficult to get any substantive legislation through Congress.
“I’m hoping that we can come up with some agreement by the end of this week,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said in an interview. “I think it’s critical if we’re going to try and get this across the floor before August recess.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Wednesday that he hopes to put the bill on the floor for a vote this work period, which ends Aug 7. When asked if he would put the bill to a vote even if a deal was not reached with Democrats, Thune said, “at some point, we’ll vote on it, yeah.”
It remains unclear when a revised draft of the bill will be released.
Lummis said in an interview that a draft could still be circulated as soon as Wednesday, but that timing was up to to Thune, and that senators were still weighing whether to include an ethics provision or leave it bracketed for later.
“There’s been some differences of opinion among senators about whether we should distribute a draft with or without the ethics language,” Lummis said. “If a decision is made to do it before there’s a final stamp of approval on ethics, it will come out with brackets saying ethics to be added. But if a decision is made to wait until the ethics language is approved, then it will take a few more days.”
Jordain Carney contributed to this report.
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