King, Colleagues Demand Answers on Special-Edition, Politicized U.S. Passport Featuring Trump’s Portrait

May 21, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C.— Today, U.S. Senator Angus King (I-ME) joined his colleagues in seeking answers on the special-edition, politicization of the official U.S. passport. In a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, King and his colleagues asked for information on the State Department’s reported plans to issue 25,000 special passports featuring President Trump’s portrait in commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the United States.
“We write to express our deep concern regarding the State Department’s reported plans to issue a limited number of specially designed U.S. passports featuring a picture of President Trump to commemorate the 250th anniversary of our nation’s founding. The U.S. passport has never—and should not now—feature an image of a sitting U.S. president. We ask you to halt these plans given the anti-democratic impact this decision will have, ” the Senators wrote. “Using our nation’s semiquincentennial to elevate the profile of the current president risks turning a unifying national milestone into a vehicle for personal promotion.”
The Senators also emphasized how unprecedented it would be to put a political figure’s face on the U.S. passport and the potential waste of American taxpayers’ dollars in the process.
“To our knowledge, no country places the portrait of a sitting leader in its passport,” they stressed. “Even the most authoritarian and autocratic governments have avoided equating national identity to the sitting president in such a way.”
Also on the letter are U.S. Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), and Tim Kaine (D-VA).
The full text of the letter can be found here and below.
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Dear Secretary Rubio:
We write to express our deep concern regarding the State Department’s reported plans to issue a limited number of specially designed U.S. passports featuring a picture of President Trump to commemorate the 250 th anniversary of our nation’s founding. The U.S. passport has never—and should not now—feature an image of a sitting U.S. president. We ask you to halt these plans given the anti-democratic impact this decision will have.
Using our nation’s semiquincentennial to elevate the profile of the current president risks turning a unifying national milestone into a vehicle for personal promotion. The U.S. passport is the country’s primary form of national identification, used daily by Americans of every political, cultural, and religious background. Its imagery has long reflected our shared national heritage through depictions of iconic landscapes and historic moments, not current political figures.
There is precedent for issuing commemorative passports to mark significant anniversaries. For example, the State Department issued a passport featuring the Liberty Bell for the bicentennial, and in 1993, released a special green passport honoring Benjamin Franklin and 200 years of U.S. consular service. These designs celebrated our shared national history rather than the image of a sitting head of state.
To our knowledge, no country places the portrait of a sitting leader in its passport. Even the most authoritarian and autocratic governments have avoided equating national identity to the sitting president in such a way.
The decision to produce a small run of reportedly only 25,000 passports featuring the president’s image raises several questions:
We urge you to reconsider this plan. Proceeding would risk politicizing a document that is central to our national identity and could result in unnecessary and wasteful costs to the American taxpayer.
Sincerely,
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