In 1864, a Treasury bureaucrat named Spencer M Clark put his own face on the five-cent note as a prank, prompting an outraged Congress to pass a law barring any living person from appearing on US currency. It was deemed unbecoming for a republic to lionise anyone still alive. So, of course, as America celebrates its semiquincentennial, Donald Trump is pressuring currency printers to put his likeness on a new $250 bill created for the occasion.
The president's obsession with self-immortalisation extends far beyond banknotes. The Federal Arts Commission has signed off a 24-carat gold coin bearing Trump’s image. An Ultimate Fighting Championship cage fight will be held on the White House lawn on 14 June – Trump’s birthday. A limited number of passports will be issued with his picture and signature, and $100 notes bearing his signature – a first for a sitting president – are already being printed. “Not only appropriate, but also well deserved,” said Treasurer Brandon Beach.
“Trump pressures US currency printers to put his face on $250 bill for America's semiquincentennial.”
After several musicians pulled out of the flagship “Freedom 250” concerts on Washington’s National Mall, Trump announced he would replace them with “the number one attraction anywhere in the world” – himself. AI images of a towering presidential library in Miami, styled like a Trump hotel, have been praised by his son Eric. Followers in Congress have proposed a bill to carve his face into Mount Rushmore. “I don’t care about the midterms,” Trump has said, as he focuses on planting his name on monuments.
In the capital, Trump wants to build a triumphal arch at the entrance, inspired by the Arc de Triomphe but, he claims, “blows it away in every way”. It would feature a golden winged Lady Liberty atop, flanked by two gold eagles, with phrases such as “One Nation Under God” inscribed in gold. The National Capital Planning Commission received around 1,700 public comments on the arch, most opposing it as a “waste of taxpayer money” and a “disgusting and disrespectful move by a man who wants to be king”. The commission voted to advance the project but stopped short of final approval pending further review. Trump, calling the arch a tribute to military victories, said: “Nobody’s had more military victories, including recently, than we have.”
Meanwhile, the president is pushing to transform the East Potomac Golf Links into a course capable of hosting the US Open and Ryder Cup, despite his Scottish courses being repeatedly rejected for The Open Championship. Preservation advocates have sued after debris from the demolition of the White House East Wing – cleared for a ballroom – tested positive for lead and was dumped on the course.
Trump has also offered to unfreeze infrastructure funds for New York and New Jersey if Penn Station and Washington’s Dulles International Airport are renamed after him. A US judge recently refused to block renovations to a Trump golf course in Washington, quipping: “I’m no Amy Poehler.” As the semiquincentennial approaches, critics see a pattern: a president determined to canonise himself, turning a national birthday into a monument to monomania.