Nearly 200 U.S. startups are urging the Trump administration to avoid broad restrictions on Chinese open-weight AI models, arguing a ban would increase costs and hurt innovation.
The post Hundreds of AI Startups Are Pushing Back Against Washington appeared first on TechRepublic.
Nearly 200 U.S. startups are urging the Trump administration to avoid broad restrictions on Chinese open-weight AI models, arguing a ban would increase costs and hurt innovation.
The post Hundreds of AI Startups Are Pushing Back Against Washington appeared first on TechRepublic.
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Trump Media's planned Truth API is drawing regulatory scrutiny as lawmakers question whether premium access to market-moving Truth Social posts creates fairness concerns.
The post Why Trump Media’s New API Is Raising Questions on Capitol Hill appeared first on TechRepublic.
Trump Media's planned Truth API is drawing regulatory scrutiny as lawmakers question whether premium access to market-moving Truth Social posts creates fairness concerns.
The post Why Trump Media’s New API Is Raising Questions on Capitol Hill appeared first on TechRepublic.
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Bitcoin Magazine
President Trump To Meet Senators On Clarity Act’s Ethics Fight: Report
President Donald Trump plans to meet with a group of senators at the White House on Thursday afternoon to address the last major obstacle to the crypto market structure bill, according to people familiar with the plans that spoke to Politico and lawmakers involved in the talks.
The sticking point is the ethics section of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, which would restrict senior government officials from holding personal business interests in the crypto sector. Democrats have made such limits a condition of their support, in large part to address Trump’s own ties to the industry.
Negotiators have not reached a compromise, and the Senate calendar leaves a narrow window.
Senator Bernie Moreno, an Ohio Republican in the negotiations, said the senators will brief the president on 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,” Moreno said. “He’s the one who’s really driven the innovation that I think will pay dividends.”
Clarity’s fate may hinge on what Trump will accept, and on whether he will support a bill that restricts his own businesses. He has pressed the Senate to pass the legislation, though he has not stated which conflict-of-interest terms he will sign into law. His disclosure that he made more than $1 billion from crypto involvement in 2025 gave critics fresh ammunition.
The bill cleared the Senate Banking Committee in a 15-9 vote, with Democrats Ruben Gallego and Angela Alsobrooks joining Republicans to advance it. Both said in May they would not back final passage without an ethics provision. During the committee markup, an amendment from Senator Chris Van Hollen to bar the president, vice president and members of Congress from crypto business ties failed 11-13.
On Tuesday, a group of Democratic senators held a press conference to call for opposition to Clarity if it does not sever what they term Trump’s “corrupt” ties to the sector. Gallego, who has led the ethics negotiation for months, was not among them.
Timing on the revised text remains open. Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican and a chief architect of the bill, said a draft could circulate as soon as Wednesday, but that senators were weighing whether to include the ethics language or bracket it for later.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he hopes to bring the bill to the floor before the work period ends August 7. Asked whether he would hold a vote absent a deal with Democrats, Thune said, “at some point, we’ll vote on it, yeah.”
The chamber breaks for its summer recess after the first week of August, which opens a narrow stretch to finish Clarity before members turn to the November midterms. Galaxy Research put the odds of passage at 50-50 as the clock runs down.
This post President Trump To Meet Senators On Clarity Act’s Ethics Fight: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.
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Bitcoin Magazine
‘Don’t Let China Win’: President Trump Presses Senate on Clarity Act in Final Stretch
The Senate returns to Washington on July 13, with the clock running down on the most consequential piece of crypto legislation in years. Lawmakers now have roughly four weeks to schedule, debate, and pass the CLARITY Act before the August recess.
President Trump weighed in directly on Monday, posting on Truth Social that “in honor of Senator Lindsey Graham, a big supporter, the U.S. Senate should pass the Clarity Act” and warning that China and other countries “would like to take complete and total control of this major financial ‘happening,'” as well as A.I.
White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt amplified the urgency, noting the critical week coincides with the one-year anniversary of the GENIUS Act and cautioning, “We cannot afford to delay any longer.”
This is a window many policy watchers see as the last realistic chance to enact comprehensive digital-asset market structure legislation this Congress.
The CLARITY Act would draw a firm regulatory line between the SEC and the CFTC, granting the commodities regulator exclusive jurisdiction over spot markets for “digital commodities” while leaving the SEC to oversee investment-contract assets.
It cleared the House in July 2025 by a bipartisan 294–134 vote and advanced out of the Senate Banking Committee in May by a 15-9 margin, with two Democrats joining all Republicans.
Those committee votes, however, came with warnings that floor support was not guaranteed.
This week’s milestone is the release of updated text merging the Senate Banking and Agriculture Committee versions, the clearest signal yet of what survived negotiations and what remains unsettled.
JUST IN:
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 13, 2026President Trump says "The U.S. Senate should pass the Clarity Act."
pic.twitter.com/9Y7VxKZ3ck
The bill missed the July 4 signing ceremony that White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt had targeted, and while meetings ran through the recess, the thorniest issues remain unresolved, according to Crypto in America. Getting to 60 votes may prove harder than getting this far, and with the Republican conference shrinking, Democratic buy-in matters more than ever.
Chief among them is the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, folded into the CLARITY Act as Section 604, which would shield non-custodial software developers from being treated as money transmitters.
Law enforcement groups argue the language, as written, would hamper investigations into on-chain crime, and Democratic support may hinge on revisions.
The more explosive fight is over ethics. Negotiators have yet to reach a CLARITY Act deal with the White House on guardrails around conflicts of interest tied to President Trump’s crypto ventures, after disclosures showed he earned more than $1 billion from crypto-related businesses last year.
House members have pressed the Senate to act while addressing those concerns, and a coalition of more than 200 companies has urged leadership to bring the bill to the floor. The coalition argued that the bill would establish a clear federal framework for digital assets and help keep innovation in the U.S.
Complicating the math, the death of Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and the continued absence of Mitch McConnell (R-KY) leave Republicans with almost no room for error in reaching 60 votes.
Sentiment is split. Solana Policy Institute President Kristin Smith says momentum is building and a floor vote before recess remains achievable, echoing CFTC leadership calling the bill “so close.”
Others are wary: Galaxy Digital cut its passage odds to 50-50, citing the shrinking calendar and competing priorities like the NDAA. The firm said the legislation still faces procedural hurdles, unresolved ethics and developer-protection disputes, and a crowded Senate agenda that could delay consideration until September. Galaxy said the odds would improve if Senate leaders commit to a July vote. Odds were as high as 70% earlier this year.
The next four weeks may be CLARITY’s last chance in the 119th Congress.
This post ‘Don’t Let China Win’: President Trump Presses Senate on Clarity Act in Final Stretch first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.
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