Trump clashes with Jerome Powell during awkward tour of Federal Reserve

President Donald Trump had a tense exchange with Federal Reserve Board of Governors chair Jerome Powell over the cost of a long-running renovation as he toured the central bank’s Washington headquarters.

After viewing parts of the billion-dollar renovation, Trump and Powell stopped briefly to speak to reporters who’d traveled to the Federal Reserve headquarters with the president.

Trump said the cost of the years-long project was now “about $3.1 billion” rather than the $2.7 billion previously stated by Powell.

“So we’re taking a look, and it looks like it’s about 3.1 billion, went up a little bit or a lot. So the 2.7 is now 3.1, it just came out,” he said, reading from a piece of paper, as Powell looked on and shook his head negatively before interjecting.

The chairman replied, “I haven’t heard that from anybody,” and asked if the paper Trump was reading from came from the central bank.

At that point, Trump handed him the paper and continued talking while Powell pulled out his reading glasses to look.

He then told the president that the higher number he was claiming included a separate project that wasn’t part of the renovation at issue.

“You just added in a third building,” he said.

When Trump replied that the building in question was currently “being built,” Powell spoke up once more to disabuse the president of his misunderstanding of what he was reading.

He told Trump that he was mistakenly counting long-completed renovations to a building named for William Martin Jr., who served as Fed chair from 1951–1970, as part of the renovation of the Fed’s main headquarters.

“No, it’s been it was built five years ago. We finished Martin five years ago,” he said.

Asked by reporters if he expects more overruns on the lengthy project, Powell said the Fed is “ready” for any but doesn’t expect more.

“We have a little bit of a reserve that we may use, but no,” he said before adding that he expects to project will wrap in 2027 — a year after his term as chairman is set to end.

Trump and his allies have said the $2.5 billion renovation of the Fed headquarters and a neighboring building reflects an institution run amok — a belief they had hoped to verify in an afternoon tour of the construction site.

The site visit by the president is an attempt to further ratchet up pressure on Powell, whom the Republican president has relentlessly attacked for not cutting borrowing costs.

Trump’s attacks have put the Fed, a historically independent institution, under a harsh spotlight. Undermining its independence could reduce the Fed’s ability to calm financial markets and stabilize the U.S. economy.

The president has made no secret of his distaste for Powell, whom he nominated to lead the Federal Reserve in 2017, primarily because of Powell’s refusal to lower interest rates, particularly in light of Trump’s decision to levy tariffs.

Powell has said that the central bank needs time to see what effects tariffswill have on inflation and employment before making a determination on interest rates. This has prompted Trump to call Powell a “stupid person.”

The president can do little to remove Powell. Joe Biden re-nominated Powell for another five-year term in 2021 based on his steady leadership during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, and his term would expire in May. Federal statute says the president can only remove Powell “for cause.”

For a time, it appeared as if Trump and his allies had found such a cause in the costly renovation of the Fed’s headquarters.

But Trump, a former real estate developer, appeared to soften his criticisms of the project after viewing it himself.

Appearing in his element while sporting a hard hat, Trump said he would like to see the project finish.

“In many ways it’s too bad it started, but it did start, and it’s been under construction for a long time. Gonna be it’s going to be a real long time, because it looks like it’s got a long way to go,” he said.

A short time later, he told reporters that he’d had a “very good tour” and declined to repeat his earlier criticisms of the project. He did, however, give a detailed description of the project’s complexity with regard to a basement being dug beneath the Washington, D.C. water table.

“I was given a very nice tour by the head of construction. And, you know, look, if you look over here, they’re trying to open up the basement. When you open up a basement, first of all, it’s the worst space — always. A basement is the worst space in a building, and it’s also the most expensive space to build, and especially here, because you have a water line, you know, you they’re going down into the water. So they have to build a reverse, what’s called a reverse bathtub. The water has to be kept out. It’s very expensive construction,” he said.

“There’s always Monday morning quarterbacks. I don’t want to be that. I want to help them get it finished. It’s been going around for years, and I want to help them get it finished.”

He later wrote on Truth Social that it had been a “great honor” to tour the building.

“It’s got a long way to go, would have been much better if it were never started, but it is what it is and, hopefully, it will be finished ASAP,” he said. “The cost overruns are substantial but, on the positive side, our Country is doing very well and can afford just about anything — Even the cost of this building!”

He added that he’d be “watching” the project and hoped to add his own expertise, citing his eponymous real estate company’s renovation of the historic Old Post Office building into the hotel that became a MAGA hotspot during his first term before it was sold in 2021.

“The total Construction cost was a small fraction of the Fed Building’s cost, and it is many times the size. With all of that being said, let’s just get it finished and, even more importantly, LOWER INTEREST RATES!” he said.

Despite the president’s past criticism, it appears he has backed down from his implicit threat to fire Powell due to negative reaction from markets.

Last week during an Oval Office press opportunity, Trump told reporters it was “highly unlikely” that he would upend nearly a century of precedent by attempting to sack Powell less than a day after he reportedly polled a group of Republican lawmakers on whether he should sack the central bank boss during a Tuesday night meeting in the Oval Office after the 12 House Republicans blocked a cryptocurrency bill favored by the president.

With additional reporting by agencies and Washington Bureau Chief Eric Garcia