{"id":24725,"date":"2026-05-20T12:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T16:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/?p=24725"},"modified":"2026-05-20T12:58:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T16:58:11","slug":"merkley-leads-colleagues-in-slamming-trump-putting-his-face-on-u-s-passport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/es\/merkley-leads-colleagues-in-slamming-trump-putting-his-face-on-u-s-passport\/","title":{"rendered":"Merkley Leads Colleagues in Slamming Trump Putting His Face on U.S. Passport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Washington, D.C. \u2013 Today, Oregon\u2019s U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley led U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Tim Kaine (D-VA), and Angus King (I-ME) to demand answers from the U.S. Department of State about its reported plans to issue 25,000 special passports featuring Trump\u2019s portrait in commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cWe write to express our deep concern regarding the State Department\u2019s reported plans to issue a limited number of specially designed U.S. passports featuring a picture of President Trump to commemorate the 250th anniversary of our nation\u2019s founding. The U.S. passport has never\u2014and should not now\u2014feature an image of a sitting U.S. president. We ask you to halt these plans given the anti-democratic impact this decision will have,<\/strong>\u201d<\/strong> the Senators wrote in a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The Senators also emphasized how unprecedented it would be to put a political figure\u2019s face on the U.S. passport and the potential to waste Americans\u2019 taxpayer dollars in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cTo our knowledge, no country places the portrait of a sitting leader in its passport,\u201d<\/strong> they stressed. \u201cEven the most authoritarian and autocratic governments have avoided equating national identity to the sitting president in such a way.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Previously, Merkley has sounded the alarm over Trump\u2019s self-celebrating actions\u2014from putting his face on U.S. currency<\/a> a park passes<\/a>. He has also been a long-time leader in the push to end corruption by elected officials, championing legislation to rein in prediction markets<\/a>, prohibit lawmakers from trading stocks<\/a>, y\u00a0ban cryptocurrency-related corruption by elected officials at the highest levels of the federal government<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full text of the letter can be found by clicking\u00a0aqu\u00ed<\/a>\u00a0y sigue a continuaci\u00f3n:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dear Secretary Rubio:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We write to express our deep concern regarding the State Department\u2019s reported plans to issue a limited number of specially designed U.S. passports featuring a picture of President Trump to commemorate the 250el<\/sup> anniversary of our nation\u2019s founding. The U.S. passport has never\u2014and should not now\u2014feature an image of a sitting U.S. president. We ask you to halt these plans given the anti-democratic impact this decision will have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using our nation\u2019s semiquincentennial to elevate the profile of the current president risks turning a unifying national milestone into a vehicle for personal promotion. The U.S. passport is the country\u2019s primary form of national identification, used daily by Americans of every political, cultural, and religious background. Its imagery has long reflected our shared national heritage through depictions of iconic landscapes and historic moments, not current political figures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is precedent for issuing commemorative passports to mark significant anniversaries. For example, the State Department issued a passport featuring the Liberty Bell for the bicentennial, and in 1993, released a special green passport honoring Benjamin Franklin and 200 years of U.S. consular service. These designs celebrated our shared national history rather than the image of a sitting head of state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To our knowledge, no country places the portrait of a sitting leader in its passport. Even the most authoritarian and autocratic governments have avoided equating national identity to the sitting president in such a way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decision to produce a small run of reportedly only 25,000 passports featuring the president\u2019s image raises several questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. What is the production cost associated with redesigning and printing the 250el<\/sup> anniversary commemorative passport?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Were alternative design options considered? If so, how was this option selected?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Reports indicate these passports will only be available at the Washington Passport Agency. What will the process be for obtaining one? Will applicants be able to opt-out of receiving this design?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    We urge you to reconsider this plan. Proceeding would risk politicizing a document that is central to our national identity and could result in unnecessary and wasteful costs to the American taxpayer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    ###<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Washington, D.C. \u2013 Today, Oregon\u2019s U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley led U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Tim Kaine (D-VA), and Angus King (I-ME) to demand answers from the U.S. Department of State about its reported plans to issue 25,000 special passports featuring Trump\u2019s portrait in commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":18845,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[108,38],"class_list":["post-24725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-releases","tag-democracy","tag-foreign-policy-and-national-security"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMerkley Leads Colleagues in Slamming Trump Putting His Face on U.S. Passport - Merkley<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/es\/merkley-leads-colleagues-in-slamming-trump-putting-his-face-on-u-s-passport\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"es_MX\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Merkley Leads Colleagues in Slamming Trump Putting His Face on U.S. Passport - Merkley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Washington, D.C. \u2013 Today, Oregon\u2019s U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley led U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Tim Kaine (D-VA), and Angus King (I-ME) to demand answers from the U.S. Department of State about its reported plans to issue 25,000 special passports featuring Trump\u2019s portrait in commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/es\/merkley-leads-colleagues-in-slamming-trump-putting-his-face-on-u-s-passport\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Merkley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-05-20T16:58:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-05-20T16:58:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/Updated-Release-Photo-1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Justin Krakoff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Justin Krakoff\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/merkley-leads-colleagues-in-slamming-trump-putting-his-face-on-u-s-passport\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/merkley-leads-colleagues-in-slamming-trump-putting-his-face-on-u-s-passport\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Justin Krakoff\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/#\/schema\/person\/c3d47246c54d8abdcee52f34d61da4fb\"},\"headline\":\"Merkley Leads Colleagues in Slamming Trump Putting His Face on U.S. Passport\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-20T16:58:10+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-05-20T16:58:11+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/merkley-leads-colleagues-in-slamming-trump-putting-his-face-on-u-s-passport\/\"},\"wordCount\":663,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/merkley-leads-colleagues-in-slamming-trump-putting-his-face-on-u-s-passport\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/Updated-Release-Photo-1.png\",\"keywords\":[\"democracy\",\"Foreign Policy and National Security\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Press Releases\"],\"inLanguage\":\"es-MX\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/merkley-leads-colleagues-in-slamming-trump-putting-his-face-on-u-s-passport\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/merkley-leads-colleagues-in-slamming-trump-putting-his-face-on-u-s-passport\/\",\"name\":\"Merkley Leads Colleagues in Slamming Trump Putting His Face on U.S. Passport - 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