Is Donald Trump Worth $10,000?
His Supporters Want Him on U.S. Currency
Eight years after the announcement that Harriet Tubman, the former slave who became a powerful American abolitionist and social activist, would be on the $20 bill, Andrew Johnson remains the face of that popular currency.
And now there is a quiet campaign to put Donald Trump on a much bigger bill.
President Barack Obama’s Treasury Secretary, Jack Lewis, announced on April 20, 2016, that Tubman would replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. The next day, in an interview on the Today Show, Trump objected to removing Jackson. When he took office, Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s Treasury Secretary, delayed the move. The Biden administration now promises that Americans will see Tubman on the bill by 2030.
If Trump were to win the 2024 election, some believe he would again stall issuance of the $20 Harriet Tubman bill. In his Today Show interview, he said: “Andrew Jackson had a great history and I think it’s very rough when you take somebody off the bill. Andrew Jackson had a history of tremendous success for the country…. I would love to leave Andrew Jackson and see if we can maybe come up with another denomination.”
Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, has been praised for leading America’s victory in the Battle of New Orleans and for helping the country annex Florida from Spain. However, he owned hundreds of slaves and is abhorred by indigenous people. He forced members of the Creek tribe to give up their lands in Alabama and Georgia. As president, in 1830 he signed the Indian Removal Act, which removed tens of thousands of Native Americans from their land in Mississippi.
Trump supporters are advocating for the revival of the $10,000 bill, with the former president’s face on it. The $10,000 bill was first printed in 1918 and featured Salmon P. Chase, President Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury. Printing of that denomination ended in 1945 and the Federal Reserve began destroying those bills. It was the highest denomination U.S. currency ever circulated publicly. A $100,000 bill featuring Woodrow Wilson was only used for transfers between Federal Reserve Banks.
One problem with putting Trump on currency is a law passed by Congress in 1864 that stipulates only the face of a dead person can be on American currency. Revoking that would require a vote by a majority of those in both houses of Congress and the signature of the President. If Trump were to win the November 2024 Presidential election, he likely would sign such a bill. If Congress were unable to pass a bill revoking the death requirement, Trump could still be put on a bill if he died while in office. Trump’s face already is on many fake coins, and a few fake bills.
If his image is put on a $10,000 bill, Trump would be the eighth person (all men) on U.S. currency. Others are George Washington ($1 bill), Thomas Jefferson ($2 bill), Abraham Lincoln ($5 bill), Alexander Hamilton ($10 bill), Andrew Jackson ($20 bill), Ulysses S. Grant ($50 bill), and Benjamin Franklin ($100 bill). Federal currency can contain images only of “persons whose places in history the American people know well” according to the Treasury Department. Trump meets that standard.
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