The White House is in damage control mode after an unplanned dust-up Thursday between President Donald Trump and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell while Trump was on an unusual tour of the renovation site at the Fed’s headquarters in Washington.
In a press conference in front of the White House after the very public clash between Trump and Powell, administration officials tried to defend the information Trump was given on the cost of the remodeling project and blame Powell for the inaccurate numbers.
When CNN’s Kaitlin Collins pointed out that Powell was correcting the numbers Trump had, an official denied it. Collins again pointed out that the President seemed to have different numbers than the projected estimated costs.
“No, the President pulled out of his pocket a page from the FOIA request from the Fed’s own internal documents. It is available on their website,” White House deputy chief of staff James Blair insisted.
“So, when he’s saying there’s a third building, you’re saying he’s wrong?” Collins persisted.
“No, what the President is saying is that the entire construction project that’s going, which is a build and renovation project over the last number of years, is currently at $3.1 billion dollars and what the Fed chair was saying is ‘No, no, you have to take one of the buildings out of it.’ Well no. It’s all one whole project on the whole complex,” Blair maintained.
Collins wasn’t finished. “Why do you disagree with that if the building was already done and it’s not part of what your issues are right now?”
“I don’t know what you’re saying,” Blair responded.
Elon Musk’s AI Grok seemed to have an explanation that may be helpful for Blair. “In this CNN clip, Kaitlan Collins questions Trump’s staff on his clash with Fed Chair Powell over renovation costs. Trump claimed $3.1B total (including a completed building); Powell corrected to $2.5B for the ongoing project.
Yes, Trump misstated the current cost—it’s inaccurate, per Fed sources. Politicians often bend facts, but this fits his pattern of exaggeration.”
Trump insisted after the public clash between him and Powell over construction costs that it was a “good meeting.”
Trump officials tried to say Trump was right because Powell was actually “splitting hairs” in describing the costs.
“Uh – yeah. Trump took out his piece of paper, thinking he was going to get a gotcha moment, and Powell went: WRONG I expect nothing less from this administration – it’s embarrassing,” this user posted on X.
Another added, “This very painful to watch wtf is he defending?”
The ongoing feud between Trump and Powell spilled into public view as the pair very publicly disputed renovation costs at the central bank’s headquarters in Washington D.C.
The President made a comment that the expected price of rehabbing the building would actually cost closer to $3 billion instead of the estimated $2.5 billion, as Powell pursed his lips, closed his eye and shook his head.
”It looks like it’s about $3.1 billion — went up a little bit,” Trump said.
“I’m not aware of that,” a Powell told the president.
“Yeah, it just came out,” Trump insisted.
“I haven’t heard that from anybody,” Powell shot back, publicly contradicting Trump in a way that very few officials ever have.
Trump handed him a piece of paper, still trying to insist that the renovation costs were running much higher than predicted.
Powell set him straight.
He pointed out that Trump was referring to a third federal building that was renovated years ago and reopened in 2021.
“You just added in a third building is what that is. That’s a third building,” Powell said.
“It’s a building that’s being built,” Trump argued.
“No, it was built five years ago,” Powell said, again correcting Trump.
Trump then insisted the third building is part of the overall project.
Powell set him straight again, “It’s not new.”
Trump took a few questions from reporters at the site, one of them asking how he would handle a project manager if costs were running over budget.
“I’d fire him,” Trump said very loudly and smugly.
A little later he answered another question by telling Powell bluntly, “I’d love him to lower interest rates.”
And that’s really what this is all about.
A frustrated Trump has been demanding Powell lower interest rates for months. He’s resorted to his usual name calling and childish taunts in trying to get his way, and of course publicly condemning the largely independent Fed chair, all to no avail.
Analysts predicted Trump and his cronies were going to try and find a way to either force Powell to cave to their demands or force him out. They landed on potential costs overruns on the headquarters remodeling project as possible grounds for firing Powell.
Powell kept interests rates steady at the last Fed meeting, as he has all year the central bank monitors the impact of Trump’s willy-nilly tariff policy. Trump has grown angrier and angrier, blasting Powell for months and demanding he lower the rates.
Trump’s opponents had a field day with the public humiliation.
“On display today, Donald Trump, in his failed attempt to divert our attention from his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein went to the Federal Reserve headquarters, which is being remodeled and thought he would shame Jerome Powell because the construction project was over budget, according to a piece of paper given to Donald Trump by the most incompetent White House staff in history, a piece of paper that took Jerome Powell seconds to read and seconds more to explain to Donald Trump how wrong his piece of paper is,” MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell said on his show “The Last Word.”
“It was the perfect lesson in why Donald Trump normally avoids confronting anyone who he knows is much, much smarter than he is,” O’Donnell pointed out
“Jerome Powell handed Donald Trump the kind of humiliation no person before him has ever suffered and so that Trump video humiliation will now be seen by millions and millions and millions of viewers just over the next 24 hours,” the host continued.
“And, yes, there’s something especially delicious abut a clown being clowned like that, but what’s especially important about it is that that was the very best move Donald Trump thought he had today to try and turn news coverage away from the birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein that bears Donald Trump’s name and what we now know to be several copies of the birthday book,” O’Donnell added.
He’s referring to a Wall Street Journal report on a racy letter the outlet says Trump sent to Epstein on the child sex trafficker’s 50th birthday. Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell asked his friends to send spicy birthday letters, which she then put together in a leather-bound book.
Trump’s typed letter included his signature and a drawing of a naked woman, according to WSJ.
The President has denied he wrote the note and is now suing the newspaper over its reporting.
Trump has been trying to make the Epstein controversy go away for weeks now, after stoking conspiracy theories for years and telling his supporters on the campaign trail that he would release all the documents if re-elected.
Speculation abounds that Trump is now trying to bury the files because he is in fact mentioned in the files.
The president was friends with the disgraced financier and convicted child sex trafficker until the early 2000s and has denied that he was ever at Epstein’s private island or had anything to do with Epstein’s criminal acts.
