The figures are eye-watering. What started as a $US1.9 billion ($2.9 billion) project in 2023 has blown out to about $US2.5 billion – although, in percentage terms, that’s nowhere near as bad as our very own beleaguered North Sydney Olympic Pool.
The expensive reno involves two grand Washington buildings, constructed in the 1930s, and is scheduled for completion in 2027. By then, Powell will no longer be the Fed chair – his term finishes in May.
It took US Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell only a few seconds to point out Donald Trump had conflated two separate projects.Credit: AP
Taking their tour, Trump and Powell stood beside each other in matching white hard hats, in what looked like a deleted scene from The Odd Couple.
“It looks like it’s about $US3.1 billion. It went up a little bit. Or a lot,” Trump said of the renovation cost. Powell, who had been staring grimly at the floor, turned to the president and began shaking his head.
“I’m not aware of that,” the banker said. “It just came out,” Trump replied. Powell added: “I haven’t heard that from anybody at the Fed.”
Turns out the figure “just came out” of Trump’s jacket pocket, from which the president withdrew a document that Powell then inspected, quizzically, after donning his glasses. It took him just a few seconds to realise the ruse – Trump was trying to conflate two separate projects.
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“Oh, you’re including the Martin renovation,” Powell said, referring to the refurbishment of another building, which was completed in 2021. “You just added in a third building, is what that is.”
“It’s a building that’s being built,” Trump said. “No, it was built five years ago,” Powell corrected. “We finished Martin five years ago … it’s not new.”
Unfazed, Trump turned it over to questions. Asked by a reporter what he, as a real estate developer, would do with a project manager who presided over such budget blowouts, Trump adopted his trademark phrase (and tone) from his days on reality TV show The Apprentice.
“I’d fire ’em,” he said.
Asked whether there was anything Powell could say to him that would cause him to back off from his personal attacks, Trump said: “I’d love him to lower interest rates”, and then slapped the bank chairman on the back.
And, in an audacious display from someone who has spent weeks calling him every name in the book, Trump batted away suggestions that he might try to fire Powell.
“I don’t want to be personal,” he said.
