Richard Blumenthal

Jesus Christ.

This room, "Senator Blumenthal, don't try to get up on your own."

[laughs]

"I got this."

So here are the details.

The US Postal Service has alleged that the agency is moving forward with a, quote, "secretive," you heard me correctly, "secretive, rushed effort to implement Trump's order exerting federal control over mail voting despite a court ordering or order blocking those specific plans." The official filed a whistleblower report published on Tuesday morning by the Office of Senator Blumenthal asserting that the, quote, "risky and haphazard implementation of Trump's order could lead to a catastrophic failure in the mail ballot system ahead of this year's midterm elections." The report said the agency had planned to complete the new digital system overseeing mail ballots by September 1st.

Now, I have speculation as to what's happening.

Number one, Trump has won some court favor going through this process of trying to delegitimize the vote.

The disclosure says leaving only a handful of working days to catch problems before launch.

By the final week, officials were reportedly calling the effort an ish show, and one worker who raised concerns about the lack of testing time was told simply, "We cannot fail." Quote, "Potentially millions of American voters may not receive their mail-in ballot this election cycle in a timely manner or at all," end quote, the official said in the report, which was prepared with the assistance of Whistleblower Aid, a non-profit group that represents people seeking to expose potential law-breaking.

Speaking to reports via phone on Monday, Mr. Blumenthal said of the report that, "The main takeaway for me is that the Postal Service has designed a system to disenfranchise millions of Americans.

One third of all Americans cast their ballots by mail, and the USPS puts all of their votes at risk." Now I have more context for this, but just a note.

Since coming back to, uh, Washington, Trump and his family have seen an astronomical rise in their wealth evaluation thanks to holdings in companies like w- uh, their company, uh, World Liberty Financial.

Uh, Senator Blumenthal here helps point out, uh, this in a hearing from this past July.

This is the history of the Trump meme coin.

You could make it a case history in business schools.

Those sixty-two separate bills represent the work of the committees and are largely bipartisan.

Uh, there's one area of disagreement, and I say one area of a disagreement 'cause that's what DAV has called it, that's what VFW has called it, that's what Senator Blumenthal has called it, and the disagreement is over the offset.

Tell us what that means.

The offset is, uh, congressional rules require any mandatory spending, any entitlement spending in any legislation To be offset, covered, paid for, uh, by inclusion of some type of item in the bill that reduces future spending to cover what CBO says the cost of that bill is.

You and I, a little bit too early for you and I to do our twenty-twenty seven predictions, given the fact that we're still pre-midterms.

I don't think anything would actually land this year, but quite often, you know, like the Hospice CARES Act, we knew when Senator Blumenthal kind of brought it forward, it probably wasn't gonna get across the finish line, but yet it-- interesting is the vehicle by which broader legislation is now being considered.

I think this whole caregiver discussion is actually very similar, so it's gonna be one to watch.

I hope it's not like Pachita that feels like it's been out there forever.

Uh, I would also ask that, uh, we have, actually have Dr. Malone in the audience today, and we'll see whether, you know, what, what opportunity we afford him to defend himself.

But in the meantime, I, I would, uh, ask that his, uh, basically resume, his CV, be entered in the record as well, because Senator Blumenthal has, has termed him unqualified for the position, which I, I completely disagree with.

Uh, before we turn to the witnesses, uh, in preparation of this hearing, I became aware of the fact that a, a full-length documentary is being prepared-

Five minutes

I'm a former prosecutor.

We've got, uh, Senator Blumenthal's a former prosecutor.

Uh, we, uh, I think Senator Klobuchar's a former prosecutor.

Yeah, that's right.

which they attributed to the stablecoin's liquidity and widespread use by Iranian exchanges, while alleging Tether repeatedly failed to freeze wallets despite publicly available indicators of illicit activity.

Senator Blumenthal has asked the Justice and Treasury Departments to investigate potential sanctions and banking law violations and also raised concerns about Tether's U.S. political and financial ties, including former Cantor Fitzgerald Chief Howard Lutnick, now Commerce Secretary and former White House Crypto Council Executive Director Beau Hines, now CEO of Tether U.S., arguing those relationships warrant scrutiny of whether enforcement has been sufficiently rigorous.

Tether pushed back, saying it has helped freeze roughly $550 million in Iran linked USDT over the past year and arguing that public blockchains make illicit transactions more visible than cash and allow the company to act when law enforcement provides credible information.

And finally, the UK Financial Conduct Authority has started accepting authorization applications from crypto firms ahead of a new regulatory regime taking effect on October 25th, 2027.