The $6.3 billion hack of Binance, the largest theft in crypto history, has quickly drawn reactions from political and administration figures, with a US election approaching on Nov. 3 and early voting already underway in many locations.

President Donald Trump was asked about the Binance hack at a news conference on Friday. "We don't know. We're looking at that, the hack with Binance. They're saying they're going to get it back, they're saying they're guaranteeing it," he replied.

In a post on X late Friday, the exchange committed to covering user losses. "We want to be clear about our commitment: Binance will absorb the financial impact of these stolen funds, not our users," the company said. It added that about $3 billion of the stolen funds had already been frozen in various locations. On Saturday, Binance said on X that it had already covered 90% of the impacted amount.

It remained unclear whether the hack, which has been widely attributed to a North Korean group, would confer any immediate political advantage, but Republicans and Democrats began staking out positions almost immediately.

Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Republican and longtime crypto advocate, cited the stalled Clarity Act in a Friday post on X. "Yesterday, hackers stole more than $6 billion from Binance in less than 4 hours, the biggest heist in history. The Clarity Act would have given crypto firms legal cover to freeze suspicious transactions the instant law enforcement calls. Every minute lost is money gone for good," she wrote.

Related: FBI and Secret Service join response to Binance's $6.3B hack

Clarity Act stalled over ethics provisions

The Senate failed to pass a cloture motion on the Clarity Act on Sept. 15. The bill would have established the country's first regulatory framework for digital assets. With the legislation stalled, the sector continues to operate without the comprehensive federal framework it would have created — a gap that has become central to the post-hack debate, with each party citing the same breach as evidence for its own regulatory position.

The legislation had stalled over proposed ethics provisions that would restrict government officials and their families from issuing or profiting from digital assets while in office. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission then submitted a regulatory action on Sept. 18 covering crypto asset transactions and markets for White House review, as the agency advanced its approach to overseeing the digital asset sector.

CFTC Chair Michael Selig addressed crypto market regulation in a TV appearance on Friday after the hack. "This proves our exact point in proposing regulations for crypto markets. … The real issue here is that these are unregulated offshore exchanges and they don't have the same sorts of safeguards that we have in our financial markets here in the United States," he said.

Democratic Representative Maxine Waters struck a different tone in a Friday news release. "The reported $6.3 billion hack of Binance should be a wake-up call to anyone who thinks the cryptocurrency industry can operate without strong accountability. Yet, Trump and Congressional Republicans have been set on pushing a deregulatory agenda that weakens compliance mandates and oversight of the crypto industry, not to mention the Trump family's own questionable ties to the company," she said.

Related: How Binance's record $6.3B hack unfolded

Trump family and Binance

Waters also commented on past relations between Binance and the Trump family. "Remember that after Binance's owner, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), gave over $2 billion to the Trump family's World Liberty Financial, Trump's Securities and Exchange Commission's Chair Paul Atkins dropped the SEC's slam-dunk fraud case against Binance and CZ, and Trump fully pardoned CZ, allowing him to again get involved with crypto," she said. The remarks tie the breach to longer-running disputes over the administration's crypto ties — arguments that predate the hack itself.

Meanwhile, Binance said it was working with law enforcement, blockchain intelligence firms, token issuers and other exchanges to trace and recover the stolen funds. The company also pledged to publish a postmortem incident report after completing a full security review.

"We will provide a detailed technical report outlining what happened, the lessons learned and the additional safeguards being implemented," Binance said. What happens next is likely to turn on the details in that promised report, the pace of fund recovery — about $3 billion had been frozen as of the exchange's Friday update — and whether the breach generates new momentum for the stalled Clarity Act as the Nov. 3 election approaches.

Magazine: Binance hackers raced to move billions before it could be frozen