Trump-appointed Treasury officials have pushed the federal Bureau of Engraving and Printing to design a $250 bill bearing Trump's portrait, per a May 28, 2026 Washington Post investigation drawing on four current and former employees. Two Trump political appointees were named as having urged the drafts. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent then publicly confirmed the design at the White House the same day: “we've created the bill” because “we have to be prepared.”
Bessent framed authorization as a congressional matter; legislation that would authorize a $250 denomination has stalled in Congress. If Congress acts, Trump would be the first living person on U.S. currency since 1866, when Salmon P. Chase appeared on the $1 bill. The 1866 episode prompted Congress to formally bar living-person likenesses on coins (31 U.S.C. § 5114(b) applies to currency); the bar would have to be removed for the proposed bill to circulate as legal tender.
The design effort follows a documented Trump-second-term pattern of using government instruments as personalized branding: the Department of War rename, the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace (illegally seized USIP building), the parks-pass redesign, Trump-class battleships, and 168+ branded products. The $250 bill folds the most-distributed federal artifact into the same pattern.
Hillary Clinton mocked the proposal publicly; Axios's legal analysis noted the statutory and constitutional hurdles (“Why $250 bills bearing Trump's face are a tough legal sell”). Bessent dismissed the WaPo report's framing but confirmed the design exists.