Hillary Clinton Talks A Woman On The $10 Bill

In the first national interview of her campaign, Hillary Clinton noted that having a woman on the $10 bill is an issue she's "torn" about. The problem, of course, is that it wouldn't be a woman manning the bill, so to speak — she'd be sharing it. "I want a woman on a bill," Clinton told CNN's Brianna Keilar plainly. "[But] I don't like the idea that, to compromise, you'd basically have two people on the same bill. One would be a woman. That sounds pretty second-class to me."

"So I think a woman should have her own bill. And I think that maybe it would be more appropriate to look at the 20, then the 10," she concluded.

Clinton is right, of course. Back in June, the Treasury Department responded to the Women On 20s campaign by agreeing to place a woman's image on United States currency ... but sabotaged several of Women On 20s specific goals in the process. For one, Women On 20s wanted one specific woman — Harriet Tubman — on the $20 bill (the clue's in their name) to replace Andrew Jackson. However, the Treasury decided to have Alexander Hamilton share the $10 bill with a to-be-determined woman instead.

While having a woman on United States currency for the first time in a century is something to be applauded, the prospect of a woman sharing the bill with a guy who's been on it for decades sure isn't. The idea of a woman sharing the bill with anyone, for that matter, isn't appealing. On both points — having Hamilton bumped aside rather than Jackson, and the plan to share the bill between two figures — Clinton was clear. "You know, I am very torn about it," she said. "I want a woman on a bill. I don't know why they picked the $10 bill ... You know, I want a woman on a bill. And I think it might be easier to change the 20 than the 10, but we'll see."

The woman who'll end up sharing the bill with Alexander Hamilton will be picked by the Treasury later this year, in part with help from social media. The new bill will go into circulation by 2020, but the selected woman will simply be an addition to Hamilton's presence on the bill already — arguably not a real change.