Trump is purposely using a construction project that his own appointees are making more expensive as grounds to pick a fight and potentially fire his nemesis, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
The Fed building, opened in 1937, began undergoing plans for renovation in 2020 under the first Trump administration. While the architects wanted to give the Fed glass walls to indicate its transparency, three Trump appointees insisted on marble, which was much more expensive. One of those appointees was Duncan Stroik, who is now an architecture professor at Notre Dame. He acknowledged that the appointees on the commission willfully ignored the cost implications of sticking to marble.
“If they wanted to play the cost game, you do a marble facade and you do the glass facade and you compare the cost,” Stroik told the Associated Press. “And you know, they never did that.”
The project is now $600 million over budget, with an expected total cost of $2.5 billion, including additions of an underground parking garage and atria. The Trump administration is now blaming this on Powell, framing him as an irresponsible spender.
“Chairman Jerome Powell has grossly mismanaged the Fed,” Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought wrote last week on X. “While continuing to run a deficit since FY23 (the first time in the Fed’s history), the Fed is way over budget on the renovation of its headquarters. Now up to $2.5 billion, roughly $700 million over its initial cost. These renovations include terrace rooftop gardens, water features, VIP elevators, and premium marble. The cost per square foot is $1,923–double the cost for renovating an ordinary historic federal building. The Palace of Versailles would have cost $3 billion in today’s dollars!”
But none of this was Powell’s idea.
Trump has sought to remove Powell as Fed chair for some time now, as he has consistently refused to capitulate to Trump’s demands to lower interest rates and remained brutally honest about the negative inflation impacts of Trump’s trade war. And while Trump has said that he won’t fire Powell outright, he certainly seems to be exhausting less direct methods.
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