Items priced at exactly $2.50 include a mug reading "Major League Grandpa," a water bottle saying "Proud Military," and a New Orleans Saints 3D magnet.
What the bill does
The $2.50 for America’s 250th Act would create a new $2.50 coin for the Declaration of Independence’s upcoming milestone anniversary in 2026.
Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL4) introduced the House version on September 30, while Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) introduced the Senate version that same day.
Unrelated to the reported Trump coin
A recent controversial draft design would depict President Donald Trump on a potential new $1 coin, also tied to the Declaration’s upcoming 250th anniversary. To clarify: this legislation is bipartisan and completely separate from that.
Five years ago, Congress enacted the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020, which allowed the government to mint a new $1 coin design for the Declaration’s anniversary in 2026. However, Congress didn’t specify who or what this design would depict, leaving the decision up to the Treasury.
Trump’s U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach confirmed the leaked drafts depicting Trump himself were real and under consideration, though no final decision has yet been made on whether to depict him after all.
This bill is distinct in two ways: it relates to a potential new $2.50 coin rather than the $1 coin, plus the actual designs are specified in the legislative language.
The design
So, if enacted, what would the $2.50 coin depict?
The coin’s design would replicate the 1926 design used a century ago during the Declaration’s 150th anniversary. The front depicted Lady Liberty holding the Declaration in one hand and a torch in the other, while the back depicted Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, where the document was originally signed.
That coin was also worth $2.50, even though it marked the Declaration’s 150th anniversary, rather than the 250th. (It was worth a lot more then than the current version would be, though: $2.50 back in 1926 would be worth approximately $46 today.)
Indeed, the $2.50 coin actually has a long history, though it’s now little known outside the numismatics community. A $2.50 coin was minted for more than half the country’s duration, from 1796 to 1929. For example, a 1925 design for the $2.50 coin depicted a Native American man in traditional headdress on the front and an eagle on the back.
What supporters say
Supporters argue that a new coin would help encourage patriotism and national pride during an important upcoming anniversary.
“The signing of the Declaration of Independence was a turning point in the history of the United States and the world, one that warrants national recognition,” Rep. Aderholt said in a press release. “[This bill] recognizes this importance through a meaningful coin that links our nation’s past to its present and future.”
“As America’s 250th birthday approaches, my legislation revives a 100-year-old tradition that celebrates our founding principles and joins a new generation of Americans with those who celebrated our nation’s founding 100 years ago,” Sen. Lummis said in a separate press release. “[The bill would] celebrate the values we hold so dear and create a lasting tribute families can treasure for generations.”
Odds of passage
The House version has attracted 45 cosponsors: 26 Republicans and 19 Democrats. It awaits a potential vote in the House Financial Services Committee.
The Senate version has attracted five bipartisan cosponsors: three Republicans and two Democrats. It awaits a potential vote in the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee.
The Fulcrum was unable to locate any explicit statements of opposition. The aforementioned Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020, which allowed for a new $1 coin in 2026, passed without objection in the House and by unanimous consent in the Senate.
Similar bills
The Fulcrum recently covered another congressional bill related to the Declaration’s upcoming 250th anniversary celebration: legislation for Congress to meet on July 2, 2026, at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, where the Declaration was originally signed.
The Fulcrum also covered recent bills to make changes to coins or money, including legislation to suspend both penny and nickel production for 10 years, and to put President Trump’s face on a potential new $250 bill.
Jesse Rifkin is a freelance journalist with The Fulcrum. Don’t miss his report, Congress Bill Spotlight, on The Fulcrum. Rifkin’s writings about politics and Congress have been published in the Washington Post, Politico, Roll Call, Los Angeles Times, CNN Opinion, GovTrack, and USA Today.
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image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.