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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says Trump administration is not pursuing Harriet Tubman on new $20 bills
The Apex Times

THE APEX TIMES

Politics/The Apex Times/Jul 7, 5:03 PM EDT

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says Trump administration is not pursuing Harriet Tubman on new $20 bills

In response to a question from Spectrum News, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday that the Trump administration is “not at present” planning to place Harriet Tubman’s likeness on the $20 note, reversing an effort that had been accelerated during the prior administration.

2 min readEditor-approved Apex article

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the Trump administration is not currently pursuing plans to put Harriet Tubman on the front of the new $20 bill, a move that had been under consideration and pushed forward by the Biden administration. Speaking Monday in response to a question about the status of the redesign from Spectrum News, Bessent said the administration was “not at present” planning to place Tubman’s likeness on the denomination, according to The Hill.

The $20 bill redesign has been a long-running policy project. The Hill reported that the Biden administration attempted to speed up the release of the notes featuring Tubman after earlier decisions by the Trump administration had shelved the move first initiated during the Obama years.

In public remarks during the Biden administration, White House press secretary Jen Psaki described Treasury as working to resume efforts to put Tubman on the $20 note and explore ways to speed the process. The Hill’s report cited Psaki’s January 2021 briefing, in which she said the money should reflect the history and diversity of the country and that Tubman’s image would do so.

The Hill also traced the underlying effort to the Obama-era push, which began in 2016 and was originally planned for a 2020 unveiling tied to the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. The redesign would have swapped out the likeness of Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill for Tubman, according to prior reporting summarized by the outlet.

Earlier reports from 2019 described delays and administrative reconsideration by the Trump Treasury during the first term. The Hill’s historical account aligns with contemporaneous reporting that Treasury under then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the redesign would not proceed on the accelerated timeline even as design work advanced, delaying the release date.

The practical effect of Treasury’s Monday statement is that, at least for now, the timeline for circulating $20 notes featuring Tubman appears to be paused or reversed at the federal level, meaning the existing $20 bill design would remain in place rather than transitioning to a new front-image as previously discussed by the prior administration.

It was not immediately clear what, if any, internal work would continue at Treasury, or whether the administration’s decision reflects a full cancellation of the project or merely a decision to stop moving it forward during the current term. Treasury did not provide additional details beyond Bessent’s “not at present” statement in the account reported by The Hill.

Why It Matters

  • The decision affects the federal timeline for how and whether newly designed U.S. currency featuring Tubman would enter circulation.
  • Currency redesigns require interagency coordination and procurement planning at Treasury, so pausing the effort can change budgeting and implementation schedules tied to the project.
  • The statement indicates a shift in administrative priority from the prior administration’s push to accelerate the rollout of the Tubman $20 redesign.
  • Because $20 note redesign plans have moved across multiple administrations, the change illustrates how executive branch priorities can determine the pace and scope of changes to U.S. currency imagery.

Sources

Key Facts

  • Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday that the Trump administration is “not at present” planning to place Harriet Tubman’s likeness on the $20 bill, in response to a Spectrum News question.
  • The Hill reported the Biden administration attempted to speed up release of $20 notes featuring Tubman after earlier steps taken in previous years.
  • The effort to redesign the $20 note has been underway since the Obama administration era, beginning in 2016 and previously targeted for a 2020 unveiling.
  • The $20 bill redesign would replace Andrew Jackson’s portrait with Harriet Tubman’s, according to prior reporting summarized by The Hill.
  • Earlier reporting during the first Trump term described Treasury delays tied to Mnuchin’s statements about the schedule for releasing the redesigned $20 bill.