The chair of the Federal Reserve closed his eyes and shook his head.
He was about to do something that few senior government officials ever do, at least in public: fact-check President Trump in real time.
Jerome H. Powell has been the target of Mr. Trump’s attacks for weeks because of the central bank’s unwillingness to lower interest rates. Mr. Trump has called him a “moron,” a “numbskull,” a “disaster” and more.
On Thursday, as Mr. Powell accompanied the president on a tour of the Federal Reserve’s headquarters, the Fed chair seemed fed up. The president wanted to take him to task over the cost of renovations to the building, but Mr. Powell was having none of it.
“So we’re taking a look, and it looks like it’s about 3.1 billion,” Mr. Trump started in, prompting Mr. Powell to shake his head. “It went up a little bit — or a lot.”
“So, the 2.7 is now 3.1,” Mr. Trump continued, causing Mr. Powell to recoil and look at the president with a puzzled expression.
Seeming to anticipate Mr. Powell’s objection — the chair said he had never heard the figure, and that no such numbers had come from the Federal Reserve — Mr. Trump reached into his jacket pocket for a document detailing the costs, which he said “just came out.”
Mr. Powell took the paper, scanned it for a moment, and looked up. The two men, wearing matching white hard hats at an active construction site, stood side by side before the cameras.
“You just added in a third building,” Mr. Powell said.
“It’s a building that’s being built,” Mr. Trump said.
“No, it was built five years ago,” Mr. Powell said.
Mr. Trump tried to get in the last word: “It’s part of the overall work.”
But Mr. Powell stood his ground. “It’s not new,” he said, as the president kept his face toward the cameras and changed the subject.
It was a remarkable scene. Mr. Trump, who is used to world leaders bowing down to him and cabinet members fawning over him, has rarely encountered a top official challenging him in public — in front of television cameras, no less — let alone telling him he was wrong.
It was already shaping up to be an awkward moment between the two. In public remarks and on his social media site in recent weeks, Mr. Trump has attacked Mr. Powell for not lowering interest rates, which the president has argued would help the economy. He has floated the idea of and danced around questions about firing Mr. Powell.
Mr. Trump began criticizing the costly renovation as part of an ongoing pressure campaign against Mr. Powell to submit to his demands, going so far as to suggest that the project’s cost may be fraudulently inflated.
Mr. Trump’s decision to see the building himself was a marked escalation, at a time when he appeared desperate to distract from headlines about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
The president, who likes to boast about his expertise in construction and takes pride in his record as a real-estate developer, could not prove that there were excessive costs.
Mr. Trump was asked what he would do, as real-estate developer, should a project manager go over budget. “I’d fire him,” Mr. Trump said bluntly.
By the end, when asked whether there was anything else that Mr. Powell could say to get him to back off his criticism, Mr. Trump revealed his ultimate goal.
“Well,” he said, “I’d love him to lower interest rates.”
Erica L. Green is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
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