Mock-up of Trump one-dollar coin (Photo: U.S. Mint)
President Donald Trump's administration announced in October that to celebrate the 250th Anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, the president's face would appear on a one-dollar coin. Now Democrats are moving to block it.
“No fake news here,” U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach post on X. “These first drafts honoring America’s 250th Birthday and @POTUS are real. Looking forward to sharing more soon, once the obstructionist shutdown of the United States government is over.”
One of the key barriers to Trump's coin, other than Democrats, is that U.S. law requires that a president must be dead for two or more years.
Congress has passed another bill to create a special collectible coin for the 250th anniversary, but that law specifies, “No head and shoulders portrait or bust of any person, living or dead, and no portrait of a living person may be included in the design on the reverse of specified coins.”
The Trump coin would violate both laws.
Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) announced a bill Tuesday that would block Trump from the coin by restating the existing laws, the Independent reported.
“No United States currency may feature the likeness of a living or sitting President," the bill says.
“President Trump’s self-celebrating maneuvers are authoritarian actions worthy of dictators like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, not the United States of America,” Merkely said in a statement.
“We must reject his efforts to dismantle our ‘We, The People’ republic and replace it with a strongman state by demanding strong accountability to prevent further abuse of taxpayer dollars,” he added.
Cortez Masto pointed out that “while monarchs put their faces on coins, America has never had and never will have a king.”
“Our legislation would codify this country’s long-standing tradition of not putting living presidents on American coins. Congress must pass it without delay,” she continued.
However, the bill will not come up for a vote unless it's allowed by Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), and that isn't likely.