“It’s not something that I’m focused on at the moment,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Thursday. | John Locher/AP Mnuchin dismisses question about putting Harriet Tubman on $20 bill

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Thursday declined to say whether the Trump administration would continue with a plan to depict Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill.

Asked during a CNBC television interview about removing President Andrew Jackson from the currency in place of Tubman, an abolitionist and former slave, Mnuchin said: “It’s not something that I’m focused on at the moment.”


The most important reason to make currency changes is to stop counterfeiting, he said.

“People have been on the bills for a long period of time,” he said. “This is something we’ll consider. Right now, we have a lot more important issues to focus on.”

In April 2016, then-Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said he asked the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to accelerate work on the new $20 bill with Tubman on the front. He said he expected the final concept design for the new $20 bill and other bills to be unveiled in 2020 in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote.

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But Donald Trump criticized the change at the time as “pure political correctness.”

The future president told NBC's Matt Lauer on the "Today" show in April 2016 that he "would love to leave Andrew Jackson and see if we can maybe come up with another denomination. Maybe we do the $2 bill or we do another bill.”

