SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
Could we see President Trump's face on a newly created $250 bill? On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said his department was making preparations for this new currency. It would commemorate the nation's 250th birthday. But he acknowledged one big obstacle in the way - the law.
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SCOTT BESSENT: At present, no living person can be on U.S. currency, and the currency must say - in God we trust. So right now there is proposed legislation in front of the House, in front of the Senate to change the first requirement so that a living person - Donald J. Trump - could be on the $250 bill.
PFEIFFER: That prohibition against a living person being on U.S. currency traces back to an 1866 law. To learn more, we've called a financial historian, Brendan Greeley. Brendan, welcome.
BRENDAN GREELEY: Thank you.
PFEIFFER: How did that 1866 law come about?
GREELEY: Well, it was during the Civil War that the United States began printing its own currency for the first time. Before the Civil War, private banks printed their own banknotes. And so, originally, those greenbacks were printed with what we might call patriotic education. There was a scene of the Battle of Saratoga. There was a scene of Pocahontas getting baptized or the signing of the Declaration of Independence. These were on the physical notes that came out.
And so, an enterprising Treasury official put his own face on the note. He wasn't supposed to. It was supposed to be a picture of William Clark, the explorer - of Lewis and Clark. But, you know, he just put his own face in there. So Congress was fed up with a lot of things already and passed this law in 1866 saying, you can't put any living person on American currency.
PFEIFFER: But plans were announced earlier this year to print President Trump's face on a commemorative gold coin. So does this law also apply to coins?
GREELEY: No, it doesn't. It just applies to securities like Treasury bills and physical banknotes. So there's an understanding that you have to both make sure that the bill physically works, you know, that it literally fits into, you know, ATMs and it...
PFEIFFER: Vending machines, etc.
GREELEY: ...Can be read by ATMs, vending machines, all of that. That's a process that normally takes years. In addition to that, normally, there's an understanding that you have to create some sort of political consensus around what goes on a Federal Reserve note. And so I think part of the problem right now is that they've shortchanged that process.
PFEIFFER: You know, this is reminding me that for, I think about a decade, there have been efforts to put Harriet Tubman's picture on the $20 bill in place of Andrew Jackson. That's still in the works. So how does this...
GREELEY: Yeah.
PFEIFFER: ...Compare to that?
GREELEY: Absolutely. And that was an open, public consultative process. And then the Trump administration, the first time around, decided that that was not something that they wanted to continue, so they stopped. That was proceeding along the normal ways in which we reimagine currency. You know, this is not easy to do - to figure out how you get an entire nation to agree that this is something that represents us, that is important to us, and we want to see it every day. This is a very old problem as well. There was a time, you know, when we minted coins that that was the only time you ever came into contact with the government. It was the only ever time you ever saw the emperor. When you saw the emperor or the king or the queen's face on a coin, that was how you knew who was in charge.
PFEIFFER: Speaking of emperors, you know, in preparing to talk with you, I read that President George Washington refused to appear on coins because in his words, he thought it would be monarchical. So if President Trump does end up appearing on the $250 bill, what would that signal to you about the political, cultural moment we're in?
GREELEY: Yeah, I worry about that a little bit. Historically, a new face on a coin indicates a change of regime, not just a change of ruler but a change of the way we think about what government is. Charles II in the English Restoration made sure that he reminted all of the gold coins to put his own face - and more importantly, his flowing long hair - to make sure that it was clear that the roundheads were no longer in charge, but the royals were back. This is a break in that what we've thought of as the Federal Reserve banknotes. It's been very clear for decades now that we know the six founders who go on our money. And if we were to put a sitting president on these bills, it would represent, I think, a change in regime, a change in the way we think about the country, a change in the way we think about who's in charge.
PFEIFFER: But I can imagine someone saying, isn't it ultimately harmless? Maybe it satisfies someone's vanity, but really, what's the downside of having a living president on a coin, even if it's a deviation from everything we've always done since 1866?
GREELEY: We have a long historical tradition in America of depoliticizing the federal government. It's not perfect, but we work at it to make sure that we are a nation of laws and not men, that you do not have a brand-new system of patronage every time a new president comes into office. When you put a sitting president on the money, you're sending a broader signal that is true, I think, more broadly across the government, that this is a country where a human is in power, and that human is constrained by seemingly not all that much. And the ability to remake the currency in his image is a symptom, I think. It runs parallel to the ability to remake the entire federal government in his image.
PFEIFFER: That is financial historian Brendan Greeley. His new book is "The Almighty Dollar: 500 Years Of The World's Most Powerful Money." Brendan, thank you.
GREELEY: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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