Bulwark Takes - We Can't Believe This Trump Coin is Actually REAL

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

Sam Stein and Will Sommer take on the treasury announcement that Donald Trump is planning to be on the $1 coin in 2026 to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the United States, possibly illegally. Tickets to Bulwark Live in DC (10/8) with Sarah, Tim and JVL are on sale now at https://TheBulwark.com/events.

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managing editor at the Borg here with Will Summer, who off-camera has been bullying me about my fashion, thinking I'm not dressed particularly well. I didn't realize Will was a fashion for an icon. No. Yeah, we're including this in the car. Well, you have to tell them what it was, you wanted to wear sunglasses on a hat.

I had some pink sunglasses that may or may not reflect onto my computer, screen. I don't want that. All right. We're here actually to talk about, I don't think this is a good segue, but it is sort of fashionish. It's a coin. You can. Aesthetics. Yeah. Thank you. It's a good way to put it. Apparently, Donald Trump wants to create a coin, and it's like a real thing. They're going to mint a coin. It's going to have Donald Trump's face on it. It's going to be for the 250th anniversary of independence. And like, this is not like one of those things that they're like making up and, you know, floating the idea. Like the guy who mined the coins, the U.S. Treasurer, Brandon Beach, bet you didn't know who that was before this. He said, yeah, this is not fake news. We're like basically

halfway there. We're going to, we're going to mint this shit. And so one side is fight, fight, fight, which is him just holding his fist up, just the iconic moment when he was nearly assassinated. And then the other side is just a, you know, a silhouette of Donald with a hair perfectly coiffed and says, in God we trust 1776 situation. 2006. This is vanity on a level that I don't think we've ever witnessed in America. And it's perfectly suitable for Donald Trump because this is what I totally expect. This is crazy. I mean, you know, I was thinking about this. In the Obama administration, Republicans would look at his speeches and they would count every time he said I or me and be like, this guy's an egomaniac.

And now we have the president, as far as I know, I think it was the first time a president has minted his own coin with his own face. It's crazy. It's unheard of. It's potentially illegal. I'm going to open up what the defector said about this because they looked into the law and they discovered that minting of this coin while Trump is alive appears to be illegal. The Thayer Amendment, you didn't know about the Thayer Amendment? No, I missed that one. Jeez. Well, why didn't we even have you on? Just to bully me. The Thayer Amendment added by Republican Representative to a federal appropriations bill in 1866. How could you not remember that one? states explicitly that, quote, no portrait or likeness of any living person shall be engraved

or placed upon any of the bond, securities, notes, or postal currency of the United States. That's pretty cut and dry, and I totally expect Donald Trump and the White House to abide by the law. Well, you know, it is a good idea, right? Because, you know, people get canceled, you know, terrible things come out about people. If we had had like a Harvey Weinstein coin or something, it would have been a disaster. And so now, and obviously a lot of terrible things would come out about. Let's just play this game. What would have been the worst coin to print?

I guess Harvey would have been. The Epstein, you know, I mean, something like that. Jeffrey Epstein coin? Oh, yeah, no. It happened like a subway Jared coin. Oh, course. The beloved. Damn, all that currency I have.

But, you know, this also goes back to the fact, I mean, this coin is being printed for the sesquicentennial. Mented, not printed. Excuse me. This coin is being minted for the Cesquicentennial, the 250th anniversary of America. And this was a really important issue to me. The idea of who would be. president would really play out how our sesquicentennial would go in 2024. Because a lot of us,

myself included, it seemed like 1976, they had a really good time. I was, obviously, it was not around for that. I'm going to be too old in 2076 to really enjoy that. I might be dead. Who knows? No. You could get a med bed. I'll get one of the med beds and I'll be around for the one after that too. And so, but for me, 2026 was really the important one. It's the only one I can enjoy. And unfortunately, because Trump is president, it's really becoming like the celebration of Trump rather than, you know, you see these banners around town on the Department of Labor, I believe, the giant photo of his face in D.C. It's somehow tied into the 250th anniversary. You know, I think this is maybe the biggest example of Trump really hijacking the 250th anniversary to be a

celebration of Trump. Yeah. No, 100%. We're going to have like a UFC fight. It's going to be weird. He's going to make it all about him. It's going to be divisive. And then if you dare to say like, hey, this is like kind of tacky and graceless and maybe you shouldn't do that, then you're going to be labeled, you know, I don't know, I'm patriotic or something like that. There's a lot of this going around. It's like the coin is one thing, but like, did you see the cash patel, the things he's distributing to the API? Oh, yeah, the cash challenge coin.

I actually have a FOIA in on this from a few weeks ago. What are you looking for? Well, I want every detail about the production of the challenge coin. So, yeah, so this is the cash Patel. It's almost like not even a coin, really, but it's a badge or something. Yeah, and it's shaped like the Punisher. It's got some guns on it. And it says, you know, this is from cash. Yeah, like, do you have any, like, theories as to why they're so obsessed with, like, creating these coins and memorabilia that, you know, they can brand? I guess I missed when this became a big thing.

Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, this is not going to be an original thought, but, I mean, I think it's a cult of personality, at least in the Trump case. It's this kind of rising authoritarianism. I mean, we've seen elsewhere that it's sort of like whatever Trump wants in terms of policy he's going to get, whether it's the law or not, or, you know, you have to count out a Trump to protect your industry or your business. So, you know, I think the coin is fitting with that. You know, one kind of small thought here is I think there's a really thriving industry of Trump commemorative privately produced coins. Hello, everyone.

I have something incredible to share today. We are announcing the launch of Trump coins, a true symbol of American greatness. And I wonder how those people feel. I suspect their industry is probably going to be crushed. That's a good point. And also, like, you know, he's got these digital currencies, got the meme coins, got all that stuff. Like, this actually has, yeah, but this has, like, actual value of the United States government. Is this going to be, like, a speculative coin or is there going to be real value to it?

Like, it says it's worth a dollar, I guess. Is that what it's going to be worth? Like, are people going to buy them up and assume that they're going to increase in value? Is he going to hoard them? You know, I guess that makes you wonder, I mean, Trump famously loves. He's been trying to get this garden of statues of great Americans done forever. It makes you wonder, are there going to be more coins of other people, you know, other Trump heroes minted for the 250th?

That's a really good point. Who else would he put out there? Roy Cohn. The John Jr., the Don Jr. coins only worth like 10 cents. There's definitely, I don't know if he would put other coins because I think he, first of all, his would have to be the most valuable in this system. And at $1, you know, he got up his value. Who else would he care to see in a coin?

Like the Stephen Miller coin? I can't see that. Who would want that coin? One last story before I let you go. This one tickled me. Sort of gets at like they're sort of obsessed with these weird little things like coins and swords and, you know, challenge pins and shit like that. But this is from the New York Times. Donald Trump wanted to give King Charles a gift.

And the administration began looking at an artifact relating to Dwight Eisenhower that he could. give to the British monarch, they were looking at a sword, and they went to the Droit Eisenhower Presidential Library to see if they could get a sword from the Eisenhower Sword Collection, that they could then get to the gift of the king. And the library declined to release it, or any original artifactant's collection. And so we ended up giving King Charles a replica sword. And then they fired the director of the Eisenhower Library after this, or he was forced out of his job. it's like the petty of shit i kind of love it it's i mean it's so bizarre i mean the yeah because this guy basically said you know this sword is property of the united states i don't think we can

do this just so you can have like so a cool gift bag to give king charles and and then suddenly and i think there's a couple interesting things here that emerge in the time story one is that they specifically said this guy was no longer the head of the library had to go because he was no longer trusted to handle classified information. So I imagine they probably pulled his security clearance, which is funny because like what is the, you know, what are they going to break the news on D-Day? You know, like what is the, what is the classified information that the Eisenhower library has? And then the other thing was the original request came. It's that D-Day was staged, man. It's that the request came from someone in the state department, but who was using a

private email called Gift Girl 2025. So like a Gmail. I don't know. That's crazy. I didn't, And so the idea of just getting an email from Gift Girl 2025, it's like, hey, I'm going to need you to pack up that sword and send it over. Have you emailed that address? No, I should. I mean, they don't say what domain it is, but yeah, I mean, I, I, I- Take a stab. Yeah, maybe I could maybe get some gifts. File on the forehead. This does remind me of another Obama story when he gave the queen, I think, an iPad that was loaded with, like, his speeches. It was so bad. Obama was very bad at gift-giving. But the Obama parallels are kind of funny here because the conservative is accusing him of being egomaniacal.

I'm sure you remember the famous Roman columns DNC speech in 2008. That was a big deal. Everyone thought Obama was so self-centered that he was putting Roman columns for his stage, for his DNC speech. Now we have a president who wants his face on a coin. So I guess, you know, we've come full circle. All right, buddy, look, I took your abuse. I'm better for it. I'm going to wish you.

I hope you learn from it and we can move forward together. Well, move forward. I'll think about my fashion choices going forward. Thank you, Wilson. Can I just say one more thing? One more thing? You know, there's this new story about Baron Trump shutting down a floor of Trump Tower to go on a date. I miss the story.

So Fox had it. And so apparently he went on a date and they shut down a floor of the tower. And Fox was like, this is the ultimate Chad move. And then there was a lot of speculation like, do you think the night went well for Barron? Really bizarre stuff. I just want to say his dad owns the building, folks. It's not that impressive, but wishing to grow the best, of course. You think he just called up his dad and said, hey, I need like the 82nd floor shut down or something like that.

And now is that? You're not impressed by the move? I mean, it's also, it's a building with a lot of penthouses, right? It's like he shut down the, you know, the Mall of America or something. It plays with a lot of commerce. Okay. Fair enough. It wasn't the Wall of America.

He didn't fly all the way out to Minnesota and shut down the Mall of America. Good point. All right. Well, Baron, if you're watching, great move, but not that impressive. Well, thank you so much, man. Appreciate it. Have a good weekend, buddy. You too.

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speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with I Gaming, Ontario.