‘Due Diligence’ 🙄
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is on maternity leave, so over the last few weeks a revolving door of Trump administration lackeys have stepped in to cover for her — and to face news-of-the-day questions from reporters.
The whole experience has been getting them (said lackeys) really worked up.
Last week this involved Vice President JD Vance having to eat shit in front of the press as he was pummeled with questions about the cartoonishly corrupt slush fund that Trump’s Justice Department established as part of a comedically depraved settlement between President Trump and his own IRS. Vance tripped over his words quite a bit as he tried to explain that people who assaulted police officers on Jan. 6 may, or may not, qualify for compensation through the now-infamous Anti-Weaponization Fund.
This week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent faced the music as his department comes under criticism in the wake of new reporting that Treasury Department appointees are preparing plans to create and distribute a $250 bill with President Trump’s face on it. It all comes just in time for the big America birthday bash Trump is preparing for as he turns the White House into an amusement park for a UFC fight to mark the anniversary, spending millions in taxpayer dollars to put his face on things and complete vanity projects around Washington, D.C.
The Washington Post has the details:
Trump administration officials have pressed the office responsible for printing the nation’s money to design a $250 bill featuring the president’s portrait, according to four current and former employees, in what would be the first appearance of a living person on U.S. currency in more than 150 years.
Starting last year, two political appointees at the Treasury Department — U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach and his senior adviser, Mike Brown — repeatedly urged staff at the agency’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing to prepare prototypes of the note, according to the employees, who said the move raised concerns because federal law currently allows only deceased people to appear on bills.
The banknote that includes Trump’s portrait, and is being prepared at the Treasury, is apparently just part of “appropriate planning and due diligence” in the event that legislation to create the new currency passes Congress, a Treasury spokesperson told the Post. A bill that would require the Treasury Department to print $250 Federal Reserve banknotes featuring a Trump portrait was introduced in the House more than a year ago by Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) and the legislation somehow has 15 Republican co-sponsors (which is both way too many for such unserious legislation and not that many for a bill that was proposed so long ago).
The legislation has been sitting in the House Financial Service Committee ever since and has not been voted out. If it was, and it passed the House, it’d still have to clear the 60-vote threshold of the filibuster in the Senate. I do not see a world in which any Senate Democrats (except for maybe one …) would ever help pass such a bill.
“Should this legislative mandate be signed into law, the BEP is moving proactively to produce a $250 commemorative note which will appropriately recognize the 250th Anniversary of our great nation,” a Treasury spokesperson told ABC News.
When asked about the $250 bill on Thursday, Bessent began by lashing out at the Washington Post.
“I don’t really understand this Washington Post article, but who here is from the Post?” he asked, before saying, “Terribly written, terribly edited.”
“Because basically what it says is that Treasury is following the law, and that we’ve created the bill, and that it’s up to Congress … I didn’t really understand what the story was,” he said.
He was later pressed on whether it was a good idea for the Trump administration to be making such preparations when Americans can barely afford their groceries. Bessent said he didn’t think there was anything “untoward” about it.
“It’s happening because it’s being funded by private citizens, by the federal government, by state governments, by municipal governments to celebrate our country, and I don’t think that there’s anything untoward about having the president of the United States on the 250th anniversary bill,” he said.
Spending Millions on Gold Paint for Horse Statues
This all comes against the backdrop of some other Really Bad Optics for the White House (though it is an open question whether they still care about that sort of thing). Trump’s approval rating among white working class Americans has dropped dramatically in recent weeks, as his war in Iran continues to spike gas prices and all of his vanity projects around D.C. have his supporters scratching their heads.
While Republicans literally left Washington, D.C. to avoid having to approve taxpayer funding for additional security measures for Trump’s ballroom project, Trump is still pushing for a 250-foot tall triumphal arch to be erected in time for the anniversary. Other projects include reportedly overpaying by $850,000 to have the bottom of the Reflecting Pool painted blue and, according to new reporting this afternoon by NOTUS, his administration is also spending $5 million on getting some horse statues painted gold in time for the July 4 anniversary.
JD Vance Breaks With Hegseth on AI-Powered Bloodlust
Perhaps taking cues from other, recent commencement speakers who have been booed into seeing that college graduates around the nation actually hate most of what artificial intelligence has done to their job prospects, Vice President JD Vance broke with a few of his fellow administration officials about the Pentagon’s use of AI while speaking to graduating cadets at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs on Thursday. Vance acknowledged that Americans are concerned about how AI will continue to “affect the labor market” and how it has “fundamentally changed how we interact with one another.”
“But the thing I worry about most with AI is how it will change warfare,” he said. “If the warfare of the future is to live up to the moral values of our ancestors, decisions over life and death must be made by humans and not machines.”
“So as AI transforms the battlefield — in some ways positively, in some ways not — I ask that you be jealous and selfish about your role as a decision-maker in warfare,” he continued. “Use technology to make you better, but never submit to it. You are the masters of warfare, and both your minds but also your hearts are the opposite of artificial.”
That’s a far-cry from how Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has talked about the technology.
In Case You Missed It
New edition of The Franchise, from Khaya Himmelman, out this afternoon: Some Glimmers of Hope in the GOP’s Bleak Bid to Disenfranchise Black and Dem Voters
Kate Riga has the latest on Callais fallout: Trump Judge Won’t Block White House Order That Could Inject Chaos and Disenfranchisement into Midterms
Morning Memo: Trump Sics DOJ on Famed Victim of His Sexual Abuse
A helpful breakdown of how the federal deficit works (sort of): The White House’s Latest Anti-Fraud Spin Does Not Come Close to Adding Up
The White House Intervened to Get a $620 Million Deal for a Company Tied to Donald Trump Jr.
Yesterday’s Most Read Story
Far-Right Candidate Who Wants to Deport 100 Million People Wins GOP Runoff for Texas Oil Regulator
What We Are Reading
CBS News Names an Outsider, Nick Bilton, to Lead ’60 Minutes’
I know one way Shitler can meet the requirement that only dead people may appear on our currency.
Has anyone in the government done a study on how long 24.75 karat gold leaf on a bronze statue will last under DC’s weather conditions for that $5 million dollar no-bid contract? No? I thought not.
Pure grift and payback for whatever contractor was selected. Ripe for a House investigation next year.
Am I supposed to be proud to be an American??
Granted the day isn’t over yet, but…
“No, no – I kiss his ass best!”