‘A Great Move’: Democratic Governor Praises Trump for Ordering An End to the Penny
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
Colorado Governor Jared Polis (D) praised President Donald Trump’s order eliminating the penny on Sunday, calling it “a great move.”
Trump announced on Sunday that the U.S. Treasury would stop producing pennies at his direction.
“For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful! I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies. Let’s rip the waste out of our great nations [sic] budget, even if it’s a penny at a time,” Trump posted to his Truth Social platform.
Polis, the popular two-term governor, replied to Trump and wrote, “As well as saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, there are major environmental benefits to eliminating the penny. This is a great move.”
The Colorado Democrat has long been a proponent of getting rid of the penny. In December, he argued, “Eliminating the penny would save over $300,000,000 per year (every penny costs over three cents to make) and replacing the dollar bill with a dollar coin world save over a billion dollars a decade.” Polis tagged both Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the two co-leaders of DOGE at the time.
Following Trump’s election in November, Polis raised eyebrows when he said he was “excited” to work with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on a variety of issues that the controversial healthcare advocate has long championed.
“I’m excited by the news that the President-Elect will appoint @RobertKennedyJr to @HHSGov. He helped us defeat vaccine mandates in Colorado in 2019 and will help make America healthy again by shaking up HHS and FDA. I hope he leans into personal choice on vaccines rather than bans (which I think are terrible, just like mandates) but what I’m most optimistic about is taking on big pharma and the corporate ag oligopoly to improve our health,” Polis posted as part of a lengthy tweet discussing a variety of issues including enhancing nutrition standards and ridding agriculture of pesticides.
Despite his willingness to praise Trump at times, Polis has also been a harsh critic of the president, slamming his tariffs among other recent moves.
“Trump’s tariffs will be a tax on Coloradans and American families, and increase the cost of everything from food to gas. Trump’s tariffs make us less competitive, hurt people and quite frankly make no sense,” Polis wrote earlier in the month.
