{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/king-colleagues-demand-answers-on-special-edition-politicized-us-passport-featuring-trumps-portrait", "King, Colleagues Demand Answers on Special-Edition, Politicized U.S. Passport Featuring Trump\u2019s Portrait", "2026-05-21", "2026", "2026-05", "Independent", "Senate", "ME", "Angus S. King, Jr.", "K000383", "www.king.senate.gov", "angusking", "https://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/table", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C.\u2014Today, 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\u2019s reported plans to issue 25,000 special passports featuring President Trump\u2019s portrait in commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the United States.\n\n\u201cWe write to express our deep concern regarding the State Department\u2019s 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\u2019s founding. The U.S. passport has never\u2014and should not now\u2014feature an image of a sitting U.S. president. We ask you to halt these plans given the anti-democratic impact this decision will have,\u201d the Senators wrote. \u201cUsing our nation\u2019s semiquincentennial to elevate the profile of the current president risks turning a unifying national milestone into a vehicle for personal promotion.\u201d\n\nThe Senators also emphasized how unprecedented it would be to put a political figure\u2019s face on the U.S. passport and the potential waste of American taxpayers\u2019 dollars in the process.\n\n\u201cTo our knowledge, no country places the portrait of a sitting leader in its passport,\u201d they stressed. \u201cEven the most authoritarian and autocratic governments have avoided equating national identity to the sitting president in such a way.\u201d\n\nAlso 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).\n\nThe full text of the letter can be found here and below.\n\n+++\n\nDear Secretary Rubio:\n\nWe write to express our deep concern regarding the State Department\u2019s 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\u2019s founding. The U.S. passport has never\u2014and should not now\u2014feature an image of a sitting U.S. president. We ask you to halt these plans given the anti-democratic impact this decision will have.\n\nUsing our nation\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.\n\nThere 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.\n\nTo 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.\n\nThe decision to produce a small run of reportedly only 25,000 passports featuring the president\u2019s image raises several questions:\n\nWhat is the production cost associated with redesigning and printing the 250th anniversary commemorative passport?\n\nWere alternative design options considered? If so, how was this option selected?\n\nReports indicate these passports will only be available at the Washington Passport Agency. What will the process be for obtaining one? Will applicants be able to opt-out of receiving this design?\n\nWe 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.\n\nSincerely,\n\n###", 1, "2026-05-22T06:27:39Z", "2026-05-22T06:29:18Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/king-colleagues-demand-answers-on-special-edition-politicized-us-passport-featuring-trumps-portrait"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.881077118217945, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}