WMUR’S partners at PolitiFact are taking a look at whether the Trump administration could legally put President Donald Trump’s image on a U.S. coin.
U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach posted a mock-up showing Trump on a dollar coin commemorating the nation’s 250th anniversary. The coin features the words “Fight Fight Fight” along the perimeter.
In 1866, Congress passed a law prohibiting the portrait or likeness of a living person on “bonds, securities, notes, fractional or postal currency of the United States,” but the law doesn’t mention coins.
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PolitiFact says putting Trump on a coin would likely be legal, though experts tell note a longstanding U.S. tradition of not depicting living people or sitting presidents on coins.
“Monarchies like the UK, they have their royalty on coins and it’s certainly a long standing tradition of, you know, emperors and so fourth to have their face on the coin,” said Lou Jacobson of PolitiFact. “But part of the reason why we don’t see it much in the U.S., really dates back to the days of the revolution and the idea that we are reacting against a monarchy.”
PolitiFact found four examples of U.S. coins with living people. Two were politicians, and one was President Calvin Coolidge in 1926.
