In brief
- President Trump said he’s open to nominating Democrats to the SEC and CFTC, as well as other federal regulators.
- That stance could help unblock the stalled crypto market structure bill in the Senate, which would hand key powers to both agencies.
- But the Supreme Court is likely to soon grant the president the ability to fire agency commissioners at will, complicating matters further.
President Donald Trump said for the first time this week that he is open to nominating Democrat commissioners to vacancies at the SEC and CFTC, handing a potential lifeline to the crypto market structure bill languishing in the Senate.
“There are certain areas we do look at, and certain areas that we do share power, and I’m open to that,” Trump said Monday in the Oval Office, in response to a question from Decrypt about his willingness to appoint Democrats to federal agencies including the SEC and CFTC.
Five-member commissions like the SEC and CFTC are, by law, required to feature at least two commissioners from a minority political party. But the CFTC currently has zero Democrat commissioners, and the SEC is poised to have zero as well beginning in the new year. Until this week, Trump had given no indication he planned to fill such vacancies at either financial regulator.
On the contrary, Trump has moved aggressively this year to purge other federal agencies of Democrat leadership, challenging a legal precedent that has, for 90 years, prevented other presidents from doing so. Last week, the Supreme Court signaled it is likely to overturn that precedent and grant Trump the ability to fire federal agency commissioners at will—functionally ending the independence of such agencies.
On Monday, Trump argued that in his situation, a Democratic president would not nominate Republicans to federal agencies.
“Do you think they would be appointing Republicans if it were up to them?” Trump said. “Typically, they’re not appointing Republicans.”
But every president in the modern era—Republican and Democrat alike—has nominated members of their rival political party to lead federal regulators, in line with federal law.
The issue of bipartisan federal agencies in the Trump era has had major implications for the crypto market structure bill currently grinding its way through the Senate. The bill, which would formally legalize most of the existing crypto industry, would hand the SEC and CFTC enormous powers over shaping crypto industry regulations.
Key Senate Democrats have told Decrypt in recent weeks that without guarantees of Democrat involvement in those rulemakings, the bill will have steep odds of passage.
Trump’s comments this week could calm Senate Democrats’ concerns that the president is outright hostile to keeping federal regulators bipartisan. But in the event that the Supreme Court does grant the president the ability to fire agency commissioners at will, the president could still nominate Democrats to certain regulators, and then remove them whenever he saw fit.
The crypto market structure bill, meanwhile, has slowed significantly in the Senate as a bipartisan group of negotiators attempt to hash out a deal over the sprawling legislation. Republican leadership initially wanted the bill passed this summer, then before October, then before the end of the year. Soon, they could run out of time altogether, as Congress grinds to a halt in the early spring in anticipation of the 2026 midterms.
On Monday, the chair of the Senate Banking Committee, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), acknowledged the bill will not be formally considered at a committee meeting until January 2026 at the earliest.
“The Committee is continuing to negotiate and looks forward to a markup in early 2026,” a spokesperson for Scott said in a statement shared with Decrypt.
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