There’s a federal law that says a president must be dead for two years before appearing on a coin. Donald Trump, however, is very much alive, which made Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s appearance on Fox News this week all the more unusual as he proudly held up a brand new $1 piece for Jesse Watters to admire.
The interview aired Monday night from inside the Treasury Department. “Liberty” runs across the top of the design, “In God We Trust” sits beside Trump’s likeness, and “1776-2026” marks the anniversary along the bottom.
“The president’s also going to have a coin coming out with his image on it,” Bessent announced.
The design is an updated version of the artwork the White House floated back in December, replacing Trump’s side profile with a head-on portrait.
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Of course, unveiling the coin was the easy part, but explaining why it exists at all proved considerably more complicated.
Bessent offered his own explanation without much prompting.
“As Treasury Secretary, I only have two mandates: The currency has to say, ‘In God We Trust,’ somewhere on it, and there cannot be an image of a living person,” he said.
Having laid out that standard, he immediately explained why he believes it doesn’t apply here.
“But, we have the president’s signature, which again, I think it is appropriate for the 250th,” he continued, adding: “During that 150th, there was a Calvin Coolidge coin. So, we can put living people’s images on a coin.”
His argument rests on a distinction between paper currency and coins, with Bessent maintaining that the restriction on living people applies only to bills while commemorative coins fall under a separate set of rules.
That’s where the legal debate begins.
The Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005 says a president must have been dead for two years before appearing on circulating currency. The Treasury, however, points instead to the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020, signed during Trump’s first term, which gives the Treasury Secretary authority to mint special $1 coins tied to America’s 250th anniversary.
That interpretation hasn’t gone unchallenged.
Legal experts and congressional Democrats have questioned the administration’s reasoning, while some reporting has pointed out that the same 2020 law also bars a living person’s portrait from appearing on the reverse of certain commemorative coins, raising fresh questions about whether the administration’s explanation holds up.
Meanwhile, this isn’t the only Trump-themed coin moving through the pipeline.
A separate 24-karat gold commemorative coin, approved by the Commission of Fine Arts in March, features Trump from the waist up with both fists planted on a desk.
Retired Portland attorney James Rickher sued in an effort to stop that coin from moving forward, arguing it violated the same federal restrictions on presidential portraits.
A Trump-appointed judge dismissed the case in June without ruling on whether the coin itself was lawful, deciding only that Rickher lacked standing to bring the lawsuit.
Featured image via YouTube screengrab
