ABC on Wednesday preemptively offered a blast of liberal outrage over no woman being on the American currency. A couple hours after the Good Morning America story aired, it was announced that Harriet Tubman would replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. Reporter David Wright alerted, “There are glass ceilings and there are paper ceilings, it seems. Here in the U.S., a woman has never been featured on the front of paper money.”
Wright complained, “Hamilton the musical may have saved the Alexander Hamilton the indignity with a duel with any number of female patriots.” Offering up an option that didn’t happen, the journalist derided, “The one possible solution put women on the back of the bill. Yeah, that will go over well.”
Cokie Roberts, who wrote an op-ed for the New York Times worrying that a woman would have no representation, berated, “You will have another whole generation of girls who have grown up thinking their proper place is the back of the bus.”
Saying of Hamilton, she fussed, “It was time for the ten to be updated and everyone was fine with it until there was a musical on Broadway.”
In the end, of course, it turns out that the founder of the Democratic Party was removed from the $20 and the pro-Second Amendment abolitionist Tubman was added.
A transcript of the Good Morning America segment, which aired at 7:48am ET, follows:
Good Morning America
4/20/16
7:48am ETROBIN ROBERTS: We're are back now with that big battle over Alexander Hamilton and the $10 bill. The Treasury Department planned to add a woman, but now after the success of that Broadway show Hamilton, which just won a Pulitzer Prize, those plans may be on hold. ABC's David Wright is here with more on that. Good morning, David.
DAVID WRIGHT: Good morning, Robin. There are glass ceilings and there are paper ceilings, it seems. Here in the U.S., a woman has never been featured on the front of paper money. And last summer, the Treasury announced plans that they might change that putting a woman on the $10 bill. But that was before Hamilton became such a huge hit on Broadway. Hamilton the musical may have saved the Alexander Hamilton the indignity with a duel with any number of female patriots.
COKIE ROBERTS: It was time for the ten to be updated and everyone was fine with it until there was a musical on Broadway.
WRIGHT: Our colleague Cokie Roberts has an op-ed in today's New York Times blasting the U.S. Treasury for reneging on its plan to put Eleanor Roosevelt or Rosa Parks or Susan B. Anthony on the front of the $10 bill. Cokie is being told we can look forward to the trusty ten promoting Broadway's hottest ticket for a few more years. The Treasury isn't confirming any of this right now. But officials seem to be scrambling to come up with a compromise. The one possible solution put women on the back of the bill, yeah, that will go over well.
ROBERTS: You will have another whole generation of girls who have grown up thinking their proper place is the back of the bus.
WRIGHT? How about the 20 or some new denomination?
ROBERTS: That would be even worse in a way, “oh, you get your $7 bill.”
WRIGHT: "Hamilton" playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda tweeted, “I talked with U.S. Treasury. secretary Lew told me, you're going to be very happy.” But he's a Hamilton" guy, right? They wanted to do this by 2020. That's 100 years after women's suffrage —
STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's do a recreation. Say your line about the back of the bill again.
WRIGHT: That's one of the thoughts. Rosa Parks is one of the people being considered.
ROBERTS: No, no, don't even go there.
LARA SPENCER: The back of the bill? No!
