Stalls, deflects, refuses to answer directly.
She was an abolitionist, risking her life by working to rescue and save 70 slaves via the Underground Railroad. She was a spy for the U.S. Army. And she was an activist who worked to help secure the right for women in America to vote.
Yet on Wednesday Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin announced Harriet Tubman will not be on the $20 bill next year as planned, and will miss the 100th anniversary celebration of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.
Mnuchin claimed there were design issues surrounding counterfeit protections, as CNBC reports.
“The primary reason we have looked at redesigning the currency is for counterfeiting issues,” Mnuchin told U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, (D-MA) (photo), during Wednesday’s combative hearing before the House Financial Services Committee. “Based upon this, the $20 bill will now not come out until 2028.”
But presumably those same issues would affect other new bills too. Not according to Mnuchin.
Sec. Mnuchin assumed the House Committee that the “$10 bill and the $50 bill will come out with new features beforehand.”
And asked if he supports the idea of Tubman being on the $20 bill, Mnuchin could not even say yes.
Instead, he responded, “I’ve made no decision as it relates to that.”
Pressed by Rep. Pressley, Mnuchin stalled and deflected, refusing to answer directly.
In 2016, under President Barack Obama, the U.S. Treasury asked Americans who they would like to see on a redesigned $20 bill. Harriet Tubman was the overwhelming favorite.
Watch Sec. Mnuchin respond to Rep. Ayanna Pressley’s questions on Harriet Tubman: