Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: FDIC chair Martin Gruenberg says he's stepping down after findings
Speaker 2: of a toxic work environment put the regulator at the
Speaker 2: center of a heated political fight that today led the
Speaker 2: Democratic chair of the Senate Banking Committee, Shared Brown to
Speaker 2: call for his resignation, and in a statement, Greenberg said,
Speaker 2: in part, in light of recent events, I am prepared
Speaker 2: to step down for my responsibilities once a successor is confirmed.
Speaker 2: Joining us now for reaction is Congressman Tom Emmer. He
Speaker 2: is the House Majority whip and a member of the
Speaker 2: House Financial Services Committee. He is joining us live from
Speaker 2: Capitol Hill. Congressman, thank you so much for joining here
Speaker 2: at Bloomberg. Obviously, a number of members of both the
Speaker 2: House and the Senate had called for this to happen,
Speaker 2: now that he says he will indeed step down once
Speaker 2: a successor is confirmed.
Speaker 1: Who should that successor be.
Speaker 3: Well, let's before we even get there, classic Marty Gruenberg. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm going to step down, but not until Marty Greenberg
Speaker 3: should leave the building now. He should have resigned weeks ago,
Speaker 3: perhaps years ago, based on the hundreds of pages of
Speaker 3: a report that showed this toxic work environment with sexual
Speaker 3: harassment and all kinds of awful things with the employees.
Speaker 3: And yet here he goes again, Hey, I'm going to resign.
Speaker 3: I'm prepared to do that, but not until we have
Speaker 3: a successor. Well, guess what, Kaylee, We've got six months left,
Speaker 3: roughly six or seven months left.
Speaker 4: Marty Greenberg.
Speaker 3: Grienberg needs to go yesterday, So he should resign and
Speaker 3: get out of there. I'm sure there are other capable people,
Speaker 3: by the way, that are there that can pick up
Speaker 3: the pieces and continue to run the FDI see in
Speaker 3: a much better fashion than mister Grienberg did.
Speaker 5: We spoke last week, Congressman with Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa,
Speaker 5: who's up with legislation along with her colleague from New York,
Speaker 5: Hereston Jilibrand, to essentially take away taxpayer funded pens from
Speaker 5: sex criminals, people who are found guilty of sexual harassment
Speaker 5: or so forth. Do you think that mister Groomberg should
Speaker 5: lose his pension as well as his job.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm not going to go there, because you do
Speaker 3: have a court of law, you do have people that
Speaker 3: are allowed to confront their accusers. The report is pretty damning, though,
Speaker 3: I will say, Joe, and I think before I'm going
Speaker 3: to take that step, you referred to.
Speaker 4: Sexual harassment.
Speaker 3: No, I think that bill applies to if you have
Speaker 3: been criminally charged and convicted. That's a different animal. But
Speaker 3: at this point that hasn't happened. He needs to resign, Joe.
Speaker 3: He needed to go long ago, and he should be
Speaker 3: stepping out now.
Speaker 2: Well, Congressman, I guess we'll see what the future of
Speaker 2: that bill is in the Senate. Meantime, there are a
Speaker 2: few bills that have our attention in the House this
Speaker 2: week that will be coming up for a vote related
Speaker 2: to crypto, one of them being your bill that focuses
Speaker 2: on cbdc's Central Bank Digital currencies. Other the Fit for
Speaker 2: the twenty first Century Act, which is the Market Structure
Speaker 2: Bill delineating what is the regulatory authority that the CFTC
Speaker 2: should have versus the SEC. Congressman, I know this is
Speaker 2: legislation you've been pushing, but it is also your job
Speaker 2: to count the votes. Are both of these bills going
Speaker 2: to pass on the House floor, Yes, they are, and
Speaker 2: you have confliments that the Senate will pass them.
Speaker 1: In return.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm going to leave that to the Senate.
Speaker 3: We have some champions over there who understand that we
Speaker 3: are in the digital age, that it's time to bring
Speaker 3: our financial system into the twenty first century. What the
Speaker 3: FIT Bill is, it's referred to the Market Structure Bill
Speaker 3: does is essentially start to lay out those ground rules,
Speaker 3: the playing fields, so that people who innovate in the
Speaker 3: digital space, people who are creating the next great Internet,
Speaker 3: are able to do that here in this country. Up
Speaker 3: till now, there has been no clarity, and frankly I
Speaker 3: wasn't in favor of it to begin with until he
Speaker 3: added My Securities Clarity Act, which literally allows a centralized
Speaker 3: program to decentralize over time and then be treated differently.
Speaker 3: So it's really important that we have this in place
Speaker 3: in order to keep these innovators and entrepreneurs right here
Speaker 3: in this country.
Speaker 5: Well, it's interesting, Congressman, because we keep hearing the store
Speaker 5: is closed. Now that we've gotten through the most recent
Speaker 5: bout of legislation dealing with Ukraine, funding, Israel and so forth,
Speaker 5: I guess could see some messaging bills go through, maybe
Speaker 5: an extension of the Farm Bill, But I wonder if
Speaker 5: you're working on something bigger in your head. The idea
Speaker 5: that we're going to see a vote on stable coin.
Speaker 5: Could we see a combined bill like what was being
Speaker 5: discussed with the FAA, for instance, where stable coins, safe
Speaker 5: banking executive clawbacks are all put into one vehicle to
Speaker 5: garner more support throughout the body.
Speaker 3: That might be something towards the end of the year, Joe,
Speaker 3: But I think right now you're talking about just two
Speaker 3: very specific pieces of legislation. One is creating a framework
Speaker 3: so that entrepreneurs and the innovators, those who want to
Speaker 3: invest in great projects do it right here in this country,
Speaker 3: so we don't ever experience this issue that we had
Speaker 3: with someone who's outside of the reach of the United
Speaker 3: States oversight. And then we've also got a central bank
Speaker 3: Digital Currency bill on the floor, which literally says the
Speaker 3: federal government could create one, but they're going to have
Speaker 3: to get authorization from Congress, and it's going to have
Speaker 3: to emulate cash, which simply means that any digital currency
Speaker 3: issued by the government must be open, permissionless, and private.
Speaker 3: It can't be used like the Chinese or using the
Speaker 3: digital yuan, which is basically a surveillance tool where they're
Speaker 3: building social scores on their citizens based on their purchases
Speaker 3: and their behavior.
Speaker 4: We can't have that in this country. That's Unamerican.
Speaker 3: We need a digital currency that actually is consistent with
Speaker 3: American values.
Speaker 2: Although Congressman, we have heard repeatedly from the FED Chair
Speaker 2: J Powell, who has reiterated time and again that there
Speaker 2: are nowhere close to actually launching or thinking about launching
Speaker 2: a central bank digital currency in the US. Something though,
Speaker 2: that is much closer, of course, is the upcoming election.
Speaker 2: And former President Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, was actually
Speaker 2: in your home state of Minnesota this past weekend, and
Speaker 2: he suggested he might be able to win there.
Speaker 1: Just take a listen if you will.
Speaker 4: Hello, Minnesota, this is a great state. We're going to
Speaker 4: win this state nineteen fifty two. Can you imagine. I
Speaker 4: thought we wanted in twenty sixteen. I thought we wanted.
Speaker 4: I know we wanted in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: So, Congressman, he didn't win in Minnesota in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: He lost by seven points to Joe Biden. But it's
Speaker 2: your state. Could it actually be read this time around
Speaker 2: a lot?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? I mean President Trump is leading across the country.
Speaker 3: I'm afraid that his political adversaries, well I'm not afraid.
Speaker 3: I know that they have overreached on this, the persecution
Speaker 3: of Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: You've got regular Americans.
Speaker 3: Who are not partisan watching this, and it's not a
Speaker 3: matter of where they like someone or dislike someone. They
Speaker 3: know fairness and when they see someone not being treated fairly,
Speaker 3: look at the result. He just continues to climb in
Speaker 3: the polls and in my home state, but it was
Speaker 3: Hillary Clinton. Back in twenty sixteen, Donald Trump came within
Speaker 3: less than two points, about a point and a half
Speaker 3: of beating Hillary Clinton in Minnesota, a place where a
Speaker 3: Republican presidential candidate has not won since nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 3: And right now, Kaylee, the polls that we know of
Speaker 3: show this basically as a statistical tie, a dead heat,
Speaker 3: and since the polls I've looked at typically over sampled Democrats,
Speaker 3: it's very possible that he is leading right now in Minnesota.
Speaker 3: But we have a long way to go and there's
Speaker 3: a lot of work yet to do.
Speaker 5: Well, he paid a visit to your state, Congressman, when
Speaker 5: are you going to make tracks to New York to
Speaker 5: visit the former president at the courthouse.
Speaker 3: Oh, listen, I support what's going on in terms of
Speaker 3: people who are supportive of the president like I am.
Speaker 3: But it's just a matter of logistics, that's all it is.
Speaker 3: Time I'm with you guys tonight because I'm in Washington, DC.
Speaker 2: Fair enough, although the Speaker himself was able to make
Speaker 2: a trip last week, Congressman, you wanted the speaker's job
Speaker 2: yourself before Mike Johnson got it.
Speaker 1: Are you still lying that in the future.
Speaker 4: Actually, I didn't want it.
Speaker 3: That's why I didn't put my name in until it
Speaker 3: looked like everybody that wanted it was no longer going
Speaker 3: to be a viable candidate. As it turns out, we
Speaker 3: got a great speaker. He's doing a wonderful job, and
Speaker 3: you guys are right, he did manage to make that
Speaker 3: trek up to New York. But keep in mind, I'm
Speaker 3: the whip. My job is to make sure people are
Speaker 3: attending session, that they are here so they can vote.
Speaker 3: And let's just say that we've had to do some
Speaker 3: gymnastics to make sure that with people coming and going,
Speaker 3: whether it be to New York or somewhere else. So
Speaker 3: I gotta set the example.
Speaker 5: I've thought about this, Congressman. What you must go through
Speaker 5: as a whip, I mean is to what extent is
Speaker 5: the House calendar at the mercy of what's going on
Speaker 5: in Lower Manhattan.
Speaker 3: Oh no, that's not the issue. Our calendar is working.
Speaker 3: But when you're voting and you're giving people times, you know,
Speaker 3: you can't count on the trains running on time, you
Speaker 3: can't count on the flights running on time. You don't
Speaker 3: know what the traffic's going to be like. And this
Speaker 3: isn't just about Manhattan. This is about all over the country.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: I have members who come from the West Coast that
Speaker 3: they try to leave on the day of votes and
Speaker 3: guess what mechanical problems, whatever the issue might be, and
Speaker 3: you have to deal with it. Our colleagues on the
Speaker 3: other side of the aisle have the exact same problem
Speaker 3: we do.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was a big chance, Congressman. It's good to
Speaker 5: have you back, and I hope you win tonight. Tom Emmer,
Speaker 5: the Republican from Minnesota, we thank you for being with
Speaker 5: us here on Bloomberg