Trump's threat to block Congress over voter-ID law leaves crypto bill on shakier ground

At a Republican event, the U.S. president delivered a speech that doubled down on recent comments he won't sign anything else until he gets the voting bill.

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What to know:

• President Donald Trump is demanding a new voter-ID law that would also carry the torch for his opposition of transgender athletes in women's sports — a tall order for a sluggish Senate, and he says he won't sign any other laws until it happens.
• That could be a worrisome position for a crypto industry that hopes, after years of effort, that it can advance a market structure bill through the Senate in the coming months.
• If the Clarity Act finally finds that kind of success, it may then test the new rhetorical stance of Trump, who has been calling for the crypto bill's completion since early last year.

If the crypto industry manages its top priority to get its market structure legislation through the U.S. Senate and to the desk of President Donald Trump, he might not sign it if he holds true to threats he's been making to withhold his signature from any other legislation before the elections bill.

Trump, in the midst of managing a U.S. war with Iran, has spent significant attention on the SAVE America Act, which he's declared his top priority in Congress. The proposed legislation would be designed to impose new hurdles for U.S. voting, including identification requirements, proof-of-citizenship demands and strict limits on mail-in ballots that would be expected to thin the voter rolls.

"It'll guarantee the midterms," Trump said in Monday remarks at a conference of congressional Republicans in Florida. "I'm willing to just sort of say I'm not going to sign anything until this is approved."

He acknowledged that the effort — a new version of the previous Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act that already passed the House of Representatives — will have a difficult time in the Senate, where he suggested there are four or five Republican lawmakers who aren't on board. In addition to the voter requirements, the bill would additionally focus on banning transgender athletes in women's sports and gender-affirming surgery for children.

Democrats criticize the voter-ID effort as voter suppression written to fix an election-fraud problem for which there's no evidence, despite the presidents' claims that he's been cheated in elections.

Trump argued the act would secure Republican power in the U.S. for half a century.

"You're going to win the midterms at levels you wouldn't even believe," Trump told the Republican audience. The GOP is widely expected to lose ground in November's congressional midterms, including a potential loss of the House majority, which current betting on prediction market Polymarket puts at an 85% likelihood. "You're going to win every election for a long time until somebody really screws things up, and hopefully that won't happen."

But the president has also been a major driver of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act that's been the top policy goal for the crypto industry. His new stance that he won't approve other bills before his voter-ID effort throws a shadow on the digital assets push, which is working toward a long-awaited approval from the Senate Banking Committee.

The negotiation over the market structure bill has been difficult, but crypto insiders have maintained hope that the talks could find sufficient common ground as soon as this week to get a hearing scheduled to move it through committee. The legislation has already advanced through the Senate Agriculture Committee, so if it makes it through the banking panel, a final version would need to be meshed together for a vote of the overall Senate. Assuming the House would sign off, because it had already approved a similar bill last year, the legislation would then reach Trump's desk.

Now the crypto sector has to wonder how serious the president was about refusing to sign anything, even a digital asset bill he has demanded be quickly sent to his desk. Establishing a pro-crypto regulatory system in the U.S. has been among the top issues for the Trump White House, so a Clarity Act passage will test whether Trump can force action on SAVE while still getting his crypto project accomplished.

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