Uploaded April 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
No sitting American president has ever put his name on US currency. That will change later this year when bills bearing Donald Trump’s signature start to roll out.
President Trump is engaged in a personal branding campaign unlike anything in the history of the American presidency. More than a dozen symbols of national life now bear his name or face, from a government prescription drug website to the national parks pass. And he shows no signs of stopping. There’s going to be a new “golden fleet” Trump class of Navy warships and the F47 fighter jet—named after the 47th president. A bill was introduced last year to add his face to Mount Rushmore, over engineers' warnings that this would permanently damage the monument.
In fact, Trump is using the full power of the presidency to try and get his personal brand on as much of American public life as possible. He reportedly offered to unfreeze billions in federal infrastructure funding if Senator Chuck Schumer would agree to rename New York's Penn Station after him. And a congressional bill threatened to strip $150 million in annual funding from DC's Metro system unless the city renamed it the Trump Train.
If this playbook feels familiar, it should. Authoritarian leaders have long understood that controlling the landscape, literally, what people see when they look up at a building or pull a bill from their wallet, is itself a form of power. It's how they make themselves feel bigger than the office itself. The goal is to replace the institution with the man.
But the thing about gold statues is they have a way of coming down. History has remembered leaders who slap their name on stuff—just not the way they intended. That verdict belongs to the rest of us.
No sitting American president has ever put his name on US currency. That will change later this year when bills bearing Donald Trump’s signature start to roll out.
President Trump is engaged in a personal branding campaign unlike anything in the history of the American presidency. More than a dozen symbols of national life now bear his name or face, from a government prescription drug website to the national parks pass. And he shows no signs of stopping. There’s going to be a new “golden fleet” Trump class of Navy warships and the F47 fighter jet—named after the 47th president. A bill was introduced last year to add his face to Mount Rushmore, over engineers' warnings that this would permanently damage the monument.
In fact, Trump is using the full power of the presidency to try and get his personal brand on as much of American public life as possible. He reportedly offered to unfreeze billions in federal infrastructure funding if Senator Chuck Schumer would agree to rename New York's Penn Station after him. And a congressional bill threatened to strip $150 million in annual funding from DC's Metro system unless the city renamed it the Trump Train.
If this playbook feels familiar, it should. Authoritarian leaders have long understood that controlling the landscape, literally, what people see when they look up at a building or pull a bill from their wallet, is itself a form of power. It's how they make themselves feel bigger than the office itself. The goal is to replace the institution with the man.
But the thing about gold statues is they have a way of coming down. History has remembered leaders who slap their name on stuff—just not the way they intended. That verdict belongs to the rest of us.
