News from the future: Treasury rushes out Harriet Tubman $20 bill to keep Trump from killing it

Brett T. | 9:07 PM on December 08, 2016

The media is finding itself in that awkward middle period between the shock of Donald Trump’s election and his looming inauguration (sorry, Dr. Stein).

Journalists spent months trying to warn citizens what America would look like under a Trump administration, never really expecting it to come about. Now, reporters are facing a firm deadline: Trump assumes office in January, and then they’ll have to cover what actually happens in real life in addition to predicting the future.

For example, Maya Rhodan reports in TIME this week that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew might release early images of the redesigned $20 featuring Harriet Tubman “in an effort to pressure the Trump Administration away from reversing their plans.”

https://twitter.com/michaelscherer/status/806620365426278400

Dang, that is a scoop — not that the Obama administration was in a rush to release the redesigned bill, but that Trump was planning to kill the whole currency redesign.

“What should we do before Trump gets in? Curtail Executive war making powers?”

“No no, I’ve got a real good one. In your face, Donald!” https://t.co/JQxjhUwB5N

— Michael Brendan Dougherty (@michaelbd) December 7, 2016

Rhodan even writes that “public backlash was minimal” when the plan to put a woman the bill was announced, and “the nation appeared ready for a woman,—Harriet Tubman, at that—to appear on the front of U.S. currency.”

In fact, a lot of the initial backlash against the original plan came from feminists upset that the U.S. Treasury had planned to put a woman on the unloved $10 bill — who uses tens anymore? Putting a woman on the ten was tantamount to insulting her, really.

One thing is certain: nothing moves quickly in government, and a Treasury spokesman told TIME that the redesign process, while a priority, “was always expected to extend beyond the span of one administration.”

But back to the present for a moment: is anyone really concerned that President Trump is going to send the redesigns back to the drawing board in favor of something more along these lines?