Brendan Pedersen
@BrendanPedersen
co-author @PunchbowlNews's THE VAULT w/ @lauraeweiss16 writing about Congress, money, economy. signal: bpedersen.41 he/him not a doctor
News: Rep. Mike Flood was unanimously elected as next chair of Main Street Caucus tonight at their internal meeting, per a source familiar.
Just to put this in context. The House Rules Committee needs to report a rule so the speaker can put bills on the floor. The rules committee is paralyzed because of how the speaker is dealing with the Epstein issue. So the House can’t do anything of substance this week.
NEWS — RALPH NORMAN, hardline conservative on the House Rules Committee, says the panel will not report a rule this week for bills, effectively shutting down the house floor. Why? He doesn’t want to vote on Democrats’ Epstein amendments. He says it’s grandstanding.
Multiple sources familiar with the interaction tell me that a "fucking" was inserted somewhere into this sentence :)
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz) was stopped Capitol Hill police on his way into the Senate just now, asked for some ID, to which I believe Gallego responded "are you kidding me"
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz) was stopped Capitol Hill police on his way into the Senate just now, asked for some ID, to which I believe Gallego responded "are you kidding me"
ICYMI from the Sunday Vault: -Lessons from the crypto craziness, including what's next on crypto tax front. w/ @BrendanPedersen -What's brewing on year-end talks. Some news on the trade front: W&M Chair SMITH says he's talking w/ WH about extending AGOA & changes that could…
This was not preordained! axios.com/2022/01/10/tru…
Trump endorses Sen. Mike Rounds, who voted for the rescissions package last week after balking initially at broadcasting cuts. He said he got reassurances on emergency alert funding from Trump admin
As the White House continues to scrutinize the Fed's HQ renovations, the central bank publishes a virtual tour on its website and highlights changes made since the 2021 proposal federalreserve.gov/faqs/building-…
If you’re not reading The Readback on Saturdays, you’re really missing out. Such a good behind-the-scenes, notebook deep dive of the week that was on Capitol Hill. Plus, the headlines. How can you compete with this @BrendanPedersen one?!? punchbowl.news/archive/72025-…
This literally could not matter less, but even so I am curious about the story behind the Fed's decision to re-write the previous (fairly generic) description of this segment of next week's capital conference and replace it with a new (equally generic) one federalreserve.gov/conferences/in…
Made my Readback Podcast (hosting) debut! @BrendanPedersen recaps a tumultuous Crypto Week and I talk about a tennis court. Regular listeners don’t worry, @maxpcohen will be back next week. Listen here: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the…
On the one-year anniversary of CrowdStrike's disastrous crashes that took down millions of computers worldwide, a new study finds 750-plus hospital networks in the US were disrupted, and 200-plus appear to have had outages of patient medical services. wired.com/story/at-least…
Wow NRCC beat DCCC in June fundraising - $18.1M to $12.7M NRCC also raised more in Q2, bringing in $32.2M to DCCC’s $29.1M In all of 2025 so far, NRCC raised $69M to the DCCC’s $66M
NEW FEC F3X DCCC RCPT $12,659,389 EXPN $5,026,870 COH $39,717,728 docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/…
One last story before weekend: A group of 24 House Democrats, mostly frontliners, told committee leaders yesterday it was "deeply dangerous" the GENIUS and CLARITY Act didn't apply crypto ethics limits to POTUS. Then, just about all of 'em voted for both bills. w/ @allymutnick
Ok, lots of legitimately funny stuff here
"I am so tired of making phone calls at 2, 3, 4 o'clock in the morning, getting calls from our great speaker. 'Sir, we have 12 hard nos,'" Trump recounts at the GENIUS signing ceremony. "They just want a little love. Unfortunately, it's always the same. Always the same 12 people"
The gang's all here
"I am so tired of making phone calls at 2, 3, 4 o'clock in the morning, getting calls from our great speaker. 'Sir, we have 12 hard nos,'" Trump recounts at the GENIUS signing ceremony. "They just want a little love. Unfortunately, it's always the same. Always the same 12 people"
Crypto leaders applauding Trump celebrating his immigration policy and the end of border crossings.
It's worth re-watching this moment. Trump is visibly shocked by the audience's reaction, and he repeats it a couple times for kicks: Donald Trump Pledges to Fire SEC's Gensler, Make US 'Crypto Capital' youtu.be/_TmuLMwfwSM?fe…
Trump recalls the applause he got at Bitcoin 2024, when he promised SEC Chair Gary Gensler would be fired "It was just a line in the speech. And I said, 'and I will fire Gary,' and the place exploded," Trump said. "I finished that one, and I said, what the hell did that guy do?"