President Donald Trump made a dramatic gesture to ramp up his attacks on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell with a historic visit on Thursday to Powell’s home turf, but in the end he offered relatively measured remarks about the U.S. central bank’s chief.
Trump talked about firing project managers while at the Fed’s headquarters, which the president and his allies have targeted this month over an extensive renovation project that has cost more than initially expected. He was asked what he would do as a real-estate developer with a project manager who oversaw such overruns.
“Generally speaking, what would I do? I’d fire him,” Trump told reporters. But then he stopped short of calling for Powell’s ouster, saying: “He’s showing us the work, and so I don’t want to get in to that. I don’t want to be personal.”
Trump also wasn’t that harsh about the renovation on Thursday, especially in comparison with some recent remarks by his allies.
Donald Trump and Jerome Powell reviewing documents at a construction site.
“There are things that could have been different,” the president said, regarding the work. “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.”
This month’s focus on the $2.5 billion renovation comes as Trump has been criticizing Powell for several months for not delivering big cuts to the Fed’s benchmark interest rate. The president and top administration officials have said lower rates would help the stalled U.S. housing market and save money for the federal government on its interest payments on its debt.
Trump is viewed by many analysts as wanting to be able to blame Powell for any weaknesses in the U.S. economy. Thursday’s appearance at the Fed gave Trump a new stage for criticizing the Fed boss, even as the actual thrust of the president’s barbs didn’t change all that much. It’s rare for presidents to visit the Fed, with only three having done so before Thursday.
“Going over in person is classic Trump — ‘I am going to intimidate you,’” said Sarah Binder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor of political science at George Washington University, in an interview ahead of Trump’s visit.
“It’s a full-bore attack — basically trying to bring the Fed to its knees,” added Binder, whose books include ”The Myth of Independence: How Congress Governs the Federal Reserve.”
During Thursday’s visit, Trump and Powell had a tense exchange over the price tag for the renovation, as the president said it had just grown to $3.1 billion from $2.5 billion.
Powell countered that the new figure included work on a building that was completed years ago. “You just added in a third building,” Powell told Trump. “It was built five years ago.”
When asked if there was anything Powell could say to make him back off his criticism, Trump said: “Well, I’d love him to lower interest rates.”
Powell and his Fed colleagues have indicated they’re wary of rate cuts because there’s uncertainty over whether inflation could come roaring back, especially given that economists consider Trump’s tariff policies to be inflationary. Powell also has asked the Fed’s inspector general to review its renovation project, and the central bank has devoted a section of its website to addressing frequently asked questions about the renovation and offering a video tour of the project.
Some cost increases have come from expense estimates for materials, equipment and labor that proved to be too low, as well as from encountering more asbestos than anticipated and a higher-than-expected water table, according to the Fed. In addition, an Associated Press report last week said the extensive use of marble by the Fed is, at least in part, the result of policies backed by Trump himself during his first term. Design work for the renovation began in 2017, construction started in July 2022, and the project is expected to be completed around fall 2027, Fed staff said Thursday. Fed staff also said there are about 700 to 800 construction workers employed over two shifts from about 5:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. Eastern.
Key Republicans in Congress have joined the Trump White House in putting pressure on Powell. Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, asked Powell in a letter dated Wednesday to provide a wide range of details about the renovation project, from an itemization of all cost overruns to the use of salvaged marble and new marble. The Republican leadership of the House Financial Services committee sent a similar letter on Thursday, according to multiple published reports.
Trump suggested having a “say” in Fed policy during the 2024 White House race and floated trying to fire Powell in April, with both proposals rattling many investors, given the central bank’s tradition of aiming to stand apart from politics. The president eventually pulled back on his talk of firing Powell, and last week Trump said it’s “highly unlikely” he’ll try to oust him, though he said Powell might have to leave if there’s fraud in the Fed’s $2.5 billion renovation project. Powell’s term as chair is due to end next May.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News late Wednesday that the Trump White House probably will roll out its pick for Fed chair in December or January. That forecast likely soothes some investors, as analysts have been warning that announcing the pick this summer — an unusually early rollout — would hurt the U.S. economy and markets.
Fed watchers have been emphasizing that the structure of the central bank is such that a new chair could face an uphill battle if he or she tries to achieve Trump’s goal of sharply lowering interest rates. A chair can only do so much, as there are 12 voting members of the Fed policy committee that handles rates.
In addition, while Trump has called for a rate cut of 3 percentage points, cuts of that size typically occur only during recessions.
Tara Sinclair, an economics professor at George Washington University, warned that a lot of Fed policy works because markets trust the central bank. If they think the Fed is trying to help the White House then that makes the bank’s efforts to control inflation a lot harder, she said. Sinclair also expressed alarm over Trump’s visit.
“The idea the president is coming over to visit and see how they are spending money on the building, with the suggestion he might be able to remove one or more governors over it, that’s a big threat,” she told MarketWatch ahead of the visit. Sinclair said she thinks the move has more to do with the Fed’s interest-rate decisions rather than about its spending on a property.
Before the White House’s attacks on the Fed’s renovation project ramped up this month, Trump’s cost-cutting effort, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, had expressed concerns in April about the expenses involved in the work. The price tag of $2.5 billion was an “eyebrow raiser,” said billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, who at that time was serving as the head of DOGE, before his feud with Trump took place.
Comments