To honor the United States’ 250th birthday next year, a celebration dubbed the semiquincentennial, the U.S. Treasury has created drafts of a $1 coin that features President Donald Trump.
In response, Senate Democrats have crafted a bill that would prevent Trump — or any living or sitting U.S. president — from having their likeness appear on any U.S. currency.
Oregon’s Jeff Merkley and Nevada’s Catherine Cortez Masto on Tuesday introduced the Change Corruption Act, a bill co-sponsored by fellow Democrats Ron Wyden of Oregon and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.
“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,” Merkley 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. As we look ahead to America’s 250th birthday, I’ll keep fighting back against Trump’s corruption and partisan propaganda.”
Added Wyden: “Donald Trump will stop at nothing to steal the spotlight, and that includes putting an image of himself on a U.S. coin.”
All three of the “heads” design options released by the U.S. Mint last week feature a likeness of Trump’s face, along with the word “LIBERTY” across the top, “IN GOD WE TRUST” next to Trump’s image and “1776-2026” along the bottom. All eight of the “tails” design options feature an eagle.
The U.S. Mint could decide as soon as this week whether to proceed with the Trump coins. A green light for such circulating coins would break precedent — and federal law. The Contraction Act of 1866 stipulates that only someone who has died may appear on U.S. currency and securities.
“While monarchs put their faces on coins, America has never had and never will have a king,” Cortez Masto said in a statement. “Our legislation would codify this country’s long-standing tradition of not putting living Presidents on American coins.”
Merkley and Cortez Masto last week led seven Senate Democrats in writing a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, imploring him to reject the proposed designs for the semiquincentennial dollar coin.
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