US Treasury Secretary Bessent confirms limited steps toward a $250 bill featuring Donald Trump
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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks to reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Thursday, May 28, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
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President Donald Trump listens during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Wednesday, May 27, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday that his department has prepared the design for a $250 bill featuring President Donald Trump, anticipating the passage of stalled legislation in Congress to put the president on a new denomination of legal tender.
Bessent said at the White House that authorizing the new currency will be up to lawmakers on Capitol Hill, but that “we’ve created the bill” because “we have to be prepared.”
The secretary downplayed the idea that the administration is pushing the matter, despite Trump’s penchant for infusing his name and likeness across the nation’s capital and into the observances of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
Yet he also insisted there is nothing inappropriate about Trump’s visage being part of the seminal national celebration.
“The president doesn’t do it; the House and the Senate have to do it,” Bessent said at the White House, referring to legislation, introduced by Representative Joe Wilson, R-S.C., that would direct the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing to put Trump’s face on the new bill to mark the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding.
A Treasury Department spokeswoman said the agency has carried out “appropriate planning and due diligence” to implement a potential congressional mandate “to produce a $250 commemorative note which will appropriately recognize the 250th Anniversary of our great nation.”
The spokeswoman did not mention Trump.
If passed and signed into law by Trump, Wilson’s bill would mark an extraordinary recognition for a sitting US leader and comes as Trump has sought to place himself at the centre of this year’s seminal Independence Day commemorations.
The Department’s preparation for the languishing legislation suggests some enthusiasm for the idea on the part of the Trump administration.
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