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Politico
2 hours ago
- Politico
Sherrod Brown's never-ending crypto headache
Editor's note: Morning Money is a free version of POLITICO Pro Financial Services morning newsletter, which is delivered to our subscribers each morning at 5:15 a.m. The POLITICO Pro platform combines the news you need with tools you can use to take action on the day's biggest stories. Act on the news with POLITICO Pro. Quick Fix Remember the Senate Banking Committee of 2022? The cryptocurrency industry — then beleaguered by scandals, lawsuits, and unfriendly lawmakers — doesn't want to. And crypto firms may again drop a bomb of super PAC money on Ohio to keep it from coming back. As your host reports in a new story out this morning, crypto campaign cash is looming over former Banking Chair Sherrod Brown's Senate comeback bid in the Buckeye State. A deep-pocketed super PAC funded by crypto companies that spent more than $40 million to help defeat Brown during his failed 2024 re-election campaign could once again pose a major problem for the Ohio Democrat as he seeks to return to the Senate in next year's midterms. Defeating Brown, a longtime thorn in the side for both Wall Street and the crypto sector who was a big roadblock to industry-friendly digital asset legislation as chair of the committee, was the biggest win last year for the crypto PAC network, known as Fairshake. Its 2024 crusade featured more than $130 million in spending across a swath of House and Senate races, which helped turn around the industry's fortunes in Washington. The PAC network has replenished its war chest with more than $140 million ahead of 2026, and it is already signaling that Brown could again be a target. 'Last year, voters sent a clear message that the Sherrod Brown and Elizabeth Warren agenda was deeply out of touch with Ohio values,' Fairshake spokesperson Josh Vlasto said in a statement. 'We will continue to support pro-crypto candidates and oppose anti-crypto candidates, in Ohio and nationwide.' As chair of the banking panel from 2021 to 2025, Brown often warned that digital assets open the door to illicit finance and money laundering, and he stood in the way of GOP-led proposals aimed at boosting the sector. Crypto firms capitalized on his political vulnerability in 2024, when he was one of only two Democratic incumbents running in states won by President Donald Trump. Fairshake — which is funded primarily by the crypto firms Coinbase and Ripple and the venture capital group Andreessen Horowitz — spent more money on his Ohio race than any other contest it meddled in. The PAC plastered ads across the state boosting Republican Bernie Moreno, a crypto enthusiast and car dealer who defeated Brown and now sits on the banking panel himself. It is unclear if Brown would retain his seniority and replace Warren as the committee's Democratic leader. Senate Democrats' current rules stipulate that seniority is defined by a member's most recent entry into the conference, meaning that 'the seniority of a Member with interrupted service or service in another Party does not date from that Member's initial entrance into the Senate.' But Democratic leaders could seek to change those rules or grant an exception to Brown, who was their top recruit for the Ohio race. Regardless, crypto lobbyists worry that Brown could pose problems for them if he returns — especially given the brute-force tactics the industry has used to try to take him out. And his opponent, Republican Jon Husted, has been a reliably industry-friendly vote. Husted campaign spokesperson Tyson Shepard said in a statement that if Brown enters the race, 'he will be starting in the biggest hole of his political career,' dubbing him Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's 'handpicked candidate.' Ohio Democrats hope a more favorable national environment will help propel Brown next year. 'Crypto can come in again and do whatever they're going to do,' said Jerry Austin, a longtime Democratic strategist in the state. 'I think they've shot their wad. And if they want to come back and do it again, I think a lot of things have happened between the last election and now, and that is what Trump's been doing in Ohio and the rest of the country.' It's THURSDAY — Send Capitol Hill tips to jgoodman@ For econ policy thoughts, Wall Street tips, personnel moves or general insights, email Sam at ssutton@ Driving the day Labor will release the Producer Price Index for July at 8:30 a.m. … The Securities and Exchange Commission has a closed meeting at 1 p.m. … Rate cut watch — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested the Federal Reserve should cut interest rates by half a percentage point when it meets next month, Bloomberg reports. 'I think we could go into a series of rate cuts here, starting with a 50 basis-point rate cut in September,' Bessent said on Bloomberg TV. 'Any model,' he said, suggests 'we should probably be 150, 175 basis points lower.' New York v. Zelle — New York Attorney General Letitia James on Wednesday sued the operator of Zelle, accusing the bank-owned payment platform of facilitating widespread fraud and failing to protect consumers, our Michael Stratford writes. The lawsuit against Early Warning Services, which runs the popular peer-to-peer payment network, revives similar allegations that were dropped earlier this year by the Trump administration's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. A Zelle spokesperson said New York's lawsuit was a 'political stunt to generate press, not progress.' ICYMI — Why Trump's BLS pick is in for a fight, via Sam Sutton and Nick Niedzwiadek At the regulators Treasury waives sanctions for Trump-Putin summit — The Treasury Department is temporarily easing its sweeping sanctions program targeting Russia to allow activities needed to carry out Trump's historic meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday. The order, signed on Wednesday, underscores the complex logistics involved in hosting Putin and other Russian officials who are cut off from the U.S. financial system. Treasury greenlit transactions that would otherwise be prohibited if they're 'ordinarily incident and necessary to the attendance at or support of meetings' in Alaska between the U.S. and Russian governments. The reprieve lasts through Aug. 20, and it explicitly prohibits the unblocking of any frozen Russian assets or other property. On The Hill Strange bedfellows — A coalition of groups that are normally on opposing sides in financial regulatory policy fights is calling on lawmakers to change a section of the recently enacted stablecoin law that it says allows state-chartered uninsured depository institutions to operate nationwide without proper supervision. A letter sent to lawmakers on the Senate Banking Committee Wednesday led by the Conference of State Bank Supervisors said the GENIUS Act 'allows any state-chartered uninsured depository institution with a stablecoin subsidiary to perform traditional (i.e., not solely related to payment stablecoins) money transmission and custody activities nationwide through that subsidiary, thereby bypassing host state licensing and allowing substantially less state oversight.' The letter was signed by bank trade associations including the American Bankers Association and consumer groups including Americans for Financial Reform. 'This unprecedented overriding of state law and supervision weakens vital consumer protections, creates opportunities for regulatory arbitrage, and undermines state sovereignty,' the letter said. Outbound investment on the big stage –– From our Katherine Hapgood: House Financial Services National Security Subcommittee Chair Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) said Wednesday that as Congress considers their proposal for the Defense Production Act, they will have to wait on a potential outbound investment addition, as it will most likely be a part of Trump's trade negotiations with China. 'We have a strong sense from the administration, they would rather have a threat of very harsh outbound investment criteria than finished outbound investment criteria, because they're also hopeful for a positive outcome in the negotiations,' Davidson told Katherine after the subcommittee's field hearing on the DPA. Davidson said he also wants to decouple the legislation from the annual appropriations deadline for 'more floor time' to modernize the DPA, and let trade negotiations play out. He said he is eyeing June for the revamped DPA reauthorization. Bessent endorses congressional stock trading ban — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is calling for a ban on single-stock trading by members of Congress, our Gregory Svirnovskiy and Meredith Lee Hill write. Trade Bessent dismisses Nvidia deal concerns — Bessent on Wednesday brushed off concerns about Trump's decision to charge Nvidia for a government license to export semiconductor chips to China, our Doug Palmer and Ari Hawkins report. 'There are no national security concerns here' because the H20 chips are not the most advanced chips that Nvidia makes, Bessent said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. His comments come despite criticism from former officials and members of Congress. Jobs report Anastasia Dellaccio is joining the Digital Chamber, a crypto trade group, as executive director of state and regional affairs. She is an alum of the Export-Import Bank.
Vox
2 hours ago
- Vox
Can the plant-based meat industry save itself from America's senseless food fights?
is a senior reporter for Vox's Future Perfect section, with a focus on animal welfare and the future of meat. Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat are two of the top three US plant-based meat companies, and they're responding to ultra-processed food criticisms Meat is undergoing a makeover. Last month, the popular plant-based meat company announced a new product — Beyond Ground — that, unlike its signature plant-based burger, sausage links, and chicken nuggets, isn't meant to directly imitate meat. Instead, it has a neutral flavor that 'serves as a blank canvas,' according to the company, for customers to season however they like. Beyond Ground contains only four ingredients — fava beans, potato starch, water, and psyllium husk — and has a macronutrient profile similar to chicken (high in protein, low in fat). It's an 'effort to step outside of the confines of mimicking a particular species and just provide something that is capable of confidently standing on its own as a center-of-the-plate protein,' Ethan Brown, Beyond Meat's founder and CEO, told me. Beyond Meat 'There's this desire to connect back to something authentic…something simpler,' Brown said. 'Being a facsimile in that moment is challenging.' To that end, the company is also shedding 'meat' from its name to become, simply, Beyond. The recent moves follow similar changes the company made last year, like when it launched the Sun Sausage — a product that's closer to an old-school veggie dog than a high-tech meat imitation — and reformulated its burger to contain less sodium and saturated fat with a simpler and cleaner ingredient list. The makeover is a 'direct reaction,' Brown said, to the many attacks the plant-based meat industry has weathered over the last five years, namely that its products are overly processed and unhealthy (attacks that I would argue are largely inaccurate and unfair). Moving forward, the industry's success, he said, will depend on making products with 'really strong macronutrient content and ratios and then really simple, clean ingredients.' Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown, right, with a fava bean farmer in Munich, North Dakota, who supplies the company. Beyond Meat Meanwhile, Impossible Foods — one of Beyond's main competitors — has taken a decidedly different tack. Over the last couple years, Impossible Foods changed its green packaging to a 'bold red' design in what it called a 'meatier brand identity,' launched an 'indulgent' burger (higher in calories, fat, sodium, and protein), recruited the world's top competitive hot dog eater as a spokesperson, and is considering making a 'blended' burger composed of half cattle beef, half plant-based beef. It has also stuck by its key ingredient, soy leghemoglobin, which replicates the heme — an iron-rich molecule — found in beef and is made with genetically engineered yeast to give its burgers an especially meaty flavor. Call it a tale of two plant-based meat companies. Both Impossible and Beyond are placing bets on what will retain current customers and attract new ones to the stagnant industry. But the stakes are much higher than just increasing quarterly sales or annual revenue: Plant-based products hold potential to help Americans move away from their high levels of meat consumption, which annually condemns billions of animals to terrible suffering and fuels environmental crises. How these bets shake out will shape the future of meat, and of our planet. The very confused discourse around plant-based meat From the mid-2010s through around 2020, plant-based upstarts like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods revitalized the meat-free food sector with products that tasted much more like meat than veggie burgers of the past. Sales of plant-based meat accelerated, and it was widely perceived as a sustainable, humane, and healthy alternative to conventional meat. That this newer generation of products were developed with advanced food technology was often a selling point. It's not controversial to say that Americans would benefit from cutting back on highly processed foods, especially snacks and beverages loaded with added salt and sugar. But the classification system used to determine which foods are ultra-processed and which aren't casts such a wide net that many foods that are more or less healthy get caught in it. One of those foods is plant-based meat. Compared to conventional animal meat, plant-based meats tend to have similar protein levels, less saturated fat, and fewer calories. They also contain zero cholesterol and offer some fiber, whereas meat does not. 'These foods can be a valid and helpful way to shift toward more plant-forward diets, which are good for people and the planet,' nutrition scientist Roberta Alessandrini of the Physicians Association for Nutrition recently told CNN. Plus, the vast majority of the US meat supply comes from factory farms, which are anything but natural, minimally processed, or the pinnacle of health. Each year, billions of genetically manipulated animals are confined indoors, fed unnatural diets of genetically modified corn and soy, given a chemical cocktail of antibiotics and vaccines to stay alive, and after slaughter, their carcasses are doused with chemical disinfectants. Turkeys in a US factory consumers hold plant-based meat to a different standard. Operating in that cultural reality, it makes sense for Beyond to address its criticisms head-on by reformulating its existing products and launching new ones. But will it work? A tale of two plant-based meat companies Beyond's bet largely rests on the idea that a significant share of the US population is seeking to meaningfully cut processed foods from their diets. The company is right, in part: Polls show that many consumers aspire to eat a more minimally processed diet. But most don't act on that aspiration, and many hold more nuanced views on processed foods than the loudest voices on social media. A recent consumer survey from Purdue University agricultural researchers found that most Americans say they're concerned about processed and ultra-processed foods, but most also believe that they can be part of a healthy diet and value many of their traits: affordability, taste, shelf life, and most of all, their capacity to save them time in the kitchen. What's far more important to consumers than perceived health properties, according to Impossible Foods, is taste. Processing Meat A newsletter analyzing how the meat and dairy industries impact everything around us. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. 'Taste is absolutely the #1 purchase driver for consumers considering plant-based meat,' an Impossible Foods spokesperson wrote in an email to Vox. 'They're specifically looking for products that most closely resemble conventional meat. In fact, industry data shows that 9 of the top 10 most purchased plant-based burgers in grocery stores are of the 'meaty' variety rather than the 'veggie' variety, which is right where our products play.' The meaty approach appears to be working for the company. In a recent blind taste test, many consumers rated several Impossible Meat products as better than or equal to animal meat. 'Even during the category's downturn, we've maintained a strong position,' the Impossible spokesperson wrote. The company hasn't disclosed its revenue, but according to the market research firm Circana, last year Impossible knocked Beyond Meat out of the No. 2 spot for US plant-based meat retail sales (50-year-old MorningStar Farms, owned by food giant Kellanova — formerly Kellogg's — is in first place). Plant-based meat companies are damned if they do and damned if they don't And yet. It would be a great understatement to say that despite Impossible Foods' impressive standing in blind taste tests and supermarket sales, it hasn't come anywhere within striking distance of its ambition to take over the meat market by 2035, a goal its founder once said was doable. Plant-based meat retail sales have stalled out at around 1 percent of overall US meat sales. A decade of whiplash, from meteoric rise to slow decline, has left plant-based meat firms trapped: damned if they do, and damned if they don't. They're damned if they do a great job of imitating meat with plants, which requires more food processing and ingredients than the vegetarian products of the 1990s, but puts these newer products at risk of unfair health critiques. (Meanwhile, the protein bar company David and the high-protein milk brand Fairlife, each of whose products are highly processed with ingredients unrecognizable to the average person, are printing money and largely evading criticism.) Impossible burgers cooking on a grill. Zhang Hengwei/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images But plant-based meat companies are also damned if they don't try to imitate meat, risking being relegated to the 'for vegetarians only' category of healthier but less appetizing protein offerings. 'The tension is real,' Chris Dubois, an executive vice president at Circana, told me. Beyond Meat, he said, has done a great job listening to its customers and reformulating its products to meet the demand for simpler ingredient lists, but 'the hard part is, I don't know that that's the path to win long-term.' The animal meat industry has benefited from more than a century of generous government subsidies and favorable policy regimes, while the plant-based meat industry has not, which has created a large price gap between the two. Closing that price gap, Dubois said, could help plant-based meat 'creep into people's purchases more.' That might become possible this year, as beef and chicken prices are on the rise. Making plant-based meat products more convenient by, say, having different varieties that are pre-seasoned and easy to cook, should help too, Dubois said. I think he's right on all of these fronts. But ultimately, as I've written about before, plant-based meat faces challenges that are harder to pin down, but are likely more consequential than price, taste, convenience, and macronutrient profiles. Food choices are highly influenced by familiarity, gender, and conformity with social norms and beliefs (one of those being that meat, even if factory-farmed, is natural and nutritionally necessary). In a country where extremely popular meat products like chicken nuggets and hot dogs are highly processed, it's hard to believe that 'processing' is really plant-based meat's problem in the eyes of many consumers, rather than a convenient justification for maintaining the status quo. As demonstrated by a number of psychological studies, many people go to great lengths to justify high levels of meat consumption. Making products that are delicious, widely available, easy to cook, and as close as possible in price to animal meat are just the minimum bar plant-based meat companies must meet. Beyond, Impossible, and some of their peers have made strides on all these fronts over the past decade. But to really put a dent in meat sales, they — and their allies in the animal protection, public health, and environmental sustainability movements — will need to redeem plant-based meat in consumers' eyes and clarify what they really are: moderately processed foods with similar or better nutrition to conventional meat, and with a far lighter environmental footprint that doesn't require the confinement and slaughter of animals. It's hard to break through all the noise with a message as nuanced as that. But in some countries, it's managed to work. I hope it can work here too.
Politico
5 hours ago
- Politico
Crypto cash threatens Sherrod Brown's comeback campaign
Fairshake — which is funded primarily by the crypto firms Coinbase and Ripple and the venture capital group Andreessen Horowitz — spent more money on his Ohio race than any other contest it targeted. The PAC plastered ads across the state boosting Republican Bernie Moreno, a crypto enthusiast and car dealer who successfully defeated Brown and now sits on the Banking panel himself. It is unclear if Brown would return as the Banking Committee's Democratic leader if he won, replacing Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Senate Democrats' rules state that 'the seniority of a Member with interrupted service or service in another Party does not date from that Member's initial entrance into the Senate' — meaning he would not be entitled to count his prior service. But Democratic leaders could seek to change those rules or grant an exception to Brown, their top recruit for the Ohio race. Regardless, crypto lobbyists worry that Brown could pose problems for them if he returns — especially given the brute-force tactics the industry used to try to take him out. And his opponent, Republican incumbent Jon Husted, has been a reliably industry-friendly vote. Husted, who was tapped to fill the vacancy created when JD Vance became vice president, hasn't been vocal about crypto issues during his short time in the Senate, but he has voted in favor of industry-backed bills on the floor and supported its goals when he served as Ohio's lieutenant governor. Husted campaign spokesperson Tyson Shepard said in a statement that if Brown enters the race, 'he will be starting in the biggest hole of his political career,' dubbing him Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's 'handpicked candidate.' 'He has never faced a candidate like Jon Husted,' he said. 'Brown's slogans will ring hollow as his coalition walks away, tired of the radical policies he's forced to support to appease his coastal bosses in California and New York.' Despite losing by more than three percentage points to Moreno, Brown is seen as Democrats' best chance to win back the Ohio seat in 2026. He outran former Vice President Kamala Harris by more than seven points in the state, even as the crypto money contributed to a barrage of outside money that helped Republicans outspend Democrats in the race. Ohio Democrats hope a more favorable national environment will help propel Brown next year. 'Crypto can come in again and do whatever they're going to do,' said Jerry Austin, a longtime Democratic strategist in the state. 'I think they've shot their wad. And if they want to come back and do it again, I think a lot of things have happened between the last election and now, and that is what Trump's been doing in Ohio and the rest of the country.'
