FIRST ON FOX: Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott, R-S.C., outlined the work the GOP-led committee has achieved in the past year and revealed what priorities are on the horizon for 2026 during an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital.
Scott was quick to credit President Donald Trump, a former primary presidential opponent of the South Carolina senator, for his role in driving the Republican banking leader’s objectives across the finish line.
"I think one of the best decisions the voters have ever made in my lifetime was electing President Trump to be our 47th president," Scott told Fox News Digital. "As a result of that, affordability became a clear focus because President Trump wanted to make sure that the average American lived better than they did under President Biden."
"Under President Biden, we saw $1,075 per month as a loss in spending power. Under President Trump, we've seen that money come back to their pockets," Scott added.
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While the committee has achieved goals like passing the landmark pro-crypto GENIUS Act and working with the Trump administration to rein in banks from taking accounts away from Americans for political reasoning, Scott says there’s still much more work to be done to bolster the economy and specifically honed in on housing costs.
"Today [the age of a first-time home buyer] is at 40 years old, too high," Scott told Fox News Digital. "And President Trump has said very clearly: homeownership is a key to his agenda. Our ROAD to housing package will lower the first-time homeowners' age. It will provide more housing stock around the country, and it will encourage local jurisdictions to do so by having more resources."
A top issue that the administration and Scott set out to tackle was the controversial debanking policies that allowed top financial institutions to shut down individual Americans' bank accounts that posed a "reputation risk" to their respective firms.
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Melania Trump said in her memoir that the Trump family themselves were victims of debanking after her account was closed and her and the president's son, Barron, was unable to secure an account at the same institution.
In August, Trump signed an executive order to crack down on regulators and banks that practiced debanking for political reasons. Scott applauded the move and emphasized that his legislation, the FIRM Act, aims to codify and prevent politically motivated shutdowns of bank accounts from happening in the future.
"We saw the OCC, the Fed, and the FDIC all removed from their playbook, Reputational Risk, because too many folks in the cryptocurrency world and conservatives around the country were being punished because of President Biden's approach, picking winners and losers," Scott told Fox News Digital.
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As for the crypto sector, industry leaders have praised the Trump administration and Scott for their commitment to make America the "crypto capital of the world." The president signed the GENIUS Act into law, marking the first step in regulating digital currencies.
"You celebrate the success of the GENIUS Act because of President Trump's leadership," Scott explained. "We were able to get a bipartisan piece of legislation out of the Senate Banking Committee, out of the Senate, and signed into law."
"And the GENIUS Act will allow us to see stable coins readily available throughout our entire economy, lowering the price points and creating more access for hardworking Americans," Scott added.
As for the future of crypto, the Senate Banking Committee leader maintained his commitment to pass the highly anticipated Digital Asset Market Clarity, also known as the CLARITY Act, through the Senate "hopefully before the end of the year." While the legislation has passed the House, it remains held up in the upper chamber.
Scott blamed Democrats for the delay.
"What we're waiting for is the rest of the Democrats to show up at the table so that we can have a bipartisan vote on market structure," Scott told Fox News Digital. "Right now, sometimes it feels like some of my Democrat friends are trying to put coal in the stockings of the American people as it relates to crypto."
"What we're not going to do is allow that to happen," Scott added. "We think everybody's been nice, not naughty."
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