Three U.S. senators reportedly asked one of the people behind President Donald Trump’s meme coin if he intended to “dangle access” to the president himself at the luncheon, given that the president was already scheduled to attend the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner that same day.
As Politico reported on Thursday, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Richard Blumenthal, and Adam Schiff sent a letter to Bill Zanker, the man behind the launch of the memecoin The Official Trump (TRUMP). Lawmakers questioned whether the memecoin project was capitalizing on President Trump’s appearance at a luncheon scheduled for April 25, announced in March.
“Organizers are promoting the conference by dangling access to President Trump to potential attendees (and in doing so, encouraging them to purchase meme coins that generate transaction fees for the president and his family),” Zanker said in a letter to Zanker, according to Politico.
A Memecoin event at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, Florida property is scheduled for April 25, as is a White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in Washington, D.C., which the president said March 2 would attend for the first time since boycotting the event during his first term. Even before he took office, Trump attended a number of crypto-themed events, from the 2024 Bitcoin conference to the first dinner for TRUMP meme coin holders in May 2025.
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According to the terms of service of the project behind the meme coin, President Trump “may be unable to attend” the April 25 event and it may be canceled for any reason. Cointelegraph reached out to the White House for comment on the president’s schedule and travel expenses, but did not immediately receive a response.
Discussions on the US cryptocurrency market structure are still ongoing
Lawmakers and industry leaders have yet to publicly announce a compromise that would allow the digital asset market structure bill to pass Congress and be signed into law, as senators worry about potential conflicts of interest and “selling access” to the presidency.
In July 2025, the House of Representatives passed the CLARITY Act, a bill that establishes a market structure framework for virtual currencies in the United States. Once passed by the Senate, the chamber’s Agriculture Committee advanced the bill in January, but the Banking Committee postponed the increase indefinitely due to concerns about tokenized stocks, stablecoin yields and ethics.
As of Thursday, the Senate Banking Committee had not scheduled any increases in the bill needed to address securities laws before a potential floor vote. The White House issued a statement on Wednesday responding to concerns from the banking and cryptocurrency industries, arguing that the bill’s ban on stablecoin yields would “do little to protect bank lending.”
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