Steve Mnuchin said putting Harriet Tubman's image on the $20 bill to replace Andrew Jackson is on hold for other priorities, backing away from an Obama administration promise to honor the late slave abolitionist, CNBC reported.
The treasury secretary said in a CNBC interview onThursday that he is devoting his paper-money attention at the moment to making sure bills cannot be illegally copied.
"The No. 1 issue why we change the currency is to stop counterfeiting," Mnuchin told CNBC. "So the issues of what we change will be primarily related to what we need to do for security purposes. I've received classified briefings on that.”
"And that's what I'm focused on for the most part. People have been on the bills for a long period of time. And this is something we will consider. Right now, we've got a lot more important issues to focus on," Mnuchin said.
In April 2016, then Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced that Tubman would be featured on new $20 bills, the first time a woman had been honored on the nation's currency. He also announced that the reverse side of the new $10 would feature an image of the historic march for suffrage and honor movement leaders Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Alice Paul.
Initial plans to remove Andrew Jackson's image from the $10 note were scrapped, he noted.
Mnuchin told CNBC that moving ahead with the project was not a high priority for him.
"Ultimately we will be looking at this issue," Mnuchin said in the interview. “It's not something I'm focused on at the moment."
Mnuchin's comment brought complaints on social media, including from former first daughter Chelsea Clinton and former "West Wing" actor Joshua Malina.
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