THE STATE DEPARTMENT IS CLOSE TO FINALIZING a radical redesign of the U.S. passport to include a picture of President Donald Trump,The Bulwarkhas learned from two sources with knowledge of the redesign, including one who shared images currently under consideration.
The redesign is ostensibly part of a larger celebration of the 250th anniversary of American independence. It comes as the Treasury Department prepares to produce coins featuring Trump’s image—both acontroversial$1 coin in general circulation1and an “as large as possible” commemorative gold coin—and as the National Park Service emblazons Trump’s face on its park passes. Both of those redesigns were justified as being part of the 250th anniversary celebration.
According to the images of the passport redesign provided toThe Bulwark, the inside cover of the new State Department-issued document will feature a scowling Trump—taken from hissecond inaugural portrait—superimposed over the Declaration of Independence, as well as the president’s signature in gold.
A more traditional patriotic image—a detail from the John Trumbull paintingDeclaration of Independence—is reserved for the back cover.
Images of the new passport were shared withThe Bulwarkon condition that it not publish them. According to the source, a government official who providedThe Bulwarkwith color photographs of the redesign, the State Department is planning a “limited run” of 25,000 Trump-emblazoned passports. As of now, according to the source, the new design is still awaiting approval.
The Bulwarkreached out to both the State Department and the White House this morning witha request for comment. A State Department spokesperson asked us for deadline extension as they were “looking into” the inquiry. We gave them an additional two hours. In that time, Fox Newspublishedan “exclusive” on the new passport design. A White House spokesperson then sent us an email response confirming the new design “on background” with a link to the Fox News story.
Wanna stick it to Fox News and the White House for screwing us over? Become a Bulwark+ member.Try it out free for the next 14 days.
The potential redesign comes asPresident Trump hasaggressively pushed forthe Save America Act, which would require proof of citizenship—including a passport—before voters could cast a ballot.
According to Edward Kolla, a professor at Georgetown University and an expert on the history of passports, the decision to include the image of the president on the passport is “wacky.” No modern U.S. passport has featured the image of a sitting president, and no foreign passport has featured “the head of state of any country,” Kolla said. While passports used to bear the signatures of the officials in whose name they were issued, American passports are issued in the name the secretary of state, not the president.
The current passport design, in use since 2021, features on the inside cover a depiction of Francis Scott Key observing the British bombardment of Fort McHenry in 1814, along with the closing lines of “The Star-Spangled Banner”: “O say does that star / spangled banner yet wave / O’er the land of the free / & the home of the brave?”
Source: Drudge Report
