Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent has confirmed rumors that his department has prepared prototypes of a $250 bill featuring the president’s face, though an act of Congress would be needed to actually make such a bill a reality.
No portrait of a living person has been included on a U.S. bill or coin since 1866 — when then-Superintendent of the National Currency Bureau Spencer M. Clark printed his own face on a five-cent note, prompting Congress to pass an amendment ensuring that currency could only feature those who are deceased.
Over 150 years later, and on the eve of the nation’s 250th birthday, U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach and his senior adviser, Mike Brown, have reportedly “repeatedly urged staff at the agency’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing to prepare prototypes” of President Donald Trump’s face on a $250 bill.
The Washington Post published Thursday that Beach began providing bureau staff with mock-up designs for the note last August, “including one that shows President Donald Trump’s face in the center of the $250 bill between the signatures of the president and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.”
Treasury employees who spoke to the outlet on the condition of anonymity voiced concern about printing a Trump bill being against the law, which some congressional Republicans have already started working to change.
In February 2025, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) introduced a bill ordering the Treasury secretary “to print $250 Federal reserve notes featuring a portrait of Donald Trump.”
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