President Donald Trump and Fed Chair Jerome Powell publicly disagreed on Thursday about the cost of renovations to the Federal Reserve’s headquarters — and Trump, not Powell, was correct.
As he visited the building with Powell, Trump claimed the costs had soared to $3.1 billion, saying, “So we’re taking a look, and it looks like it’s about 3.1 billion. Went up a little bit — or a lot.”
Powell, shaking his head in disagreement, protested, “I haven’t heard that from anybody at the Fed.”
“The Fed chair then took the document, looked at it and said the additional costs the president was citing had been for a separate building whose construction was completed five years ago,” NPR reported.
But on Friday morning, Mark Paoletta, General Counsel of the Office of Management and Budget, fired off a post on X explaining that Trump was indeed correct about his assessment, writing:
President Trump is 100% correct in the numbers he used on his tour of Federal Reserve (FRB) site yesterday. FRB documents show FRB 2022 Budget (below) adopted in November 2021 was $1.4 Billion for the Eccles & 1951 Building portion of the FRB HQ project and a total budget for all three buildings comprising the FRB HQ (including the Martin building) of $1.8 Billion.
FRB 2025 Budget (below) shows costs for Eccles and 1951 are now $2.5 billion – a more than $1 Billion cost overrun for the current project (all incurred after Trump 45) and bringing the total cost of the Fed’s HQ renovation for all three buildings to $3.1 billion. President Trump visited the FRB to try to encourage Jerome Powell to finish this job without any more cost overruns and to get it done quickly. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
President Trump is 100% correct in the numbers he used on his tour of Federal Reserve (FRB) site yesterday.
FRB documents show FRB 2022 Budget (below) adopted in November 2021 was $1.4 Billion for the Eccles & 1951 Building portion of the FRB HQ project and a total budget for… https://t.co/54IzoACGhl pic.twitter.com/yRZ8iGWBAV
— Mark Paoletta (@MarkPaoletta) July 25, 2025
On July 10, Russell Vought, Director of the United States Office of Management and Budget, wrote a letter to Powell in which he stated, “The President is extremely troubled by your management of the Federal Reserve System. Instead of attempting to right the Fed’s fiscal ship, you have plowed ahead with an ostentatious overhaul of your Washington, D.C. headquarters.
“In your June 25, 2025 testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, you stated that ‘there’s no VIP dining room. There’s no new marble. … There are no special elevators. … There are no new water features. There’s no beehives and there’s no roof terrace gardens,’” Vought continued. “You also stated that many of the ‘inflammatory things that the media carried are … not in the current plan’ and that some things in the 2021 plan ‘are no longer in the plans.’ You also stated that ‘the Eccles building really needed a serious renovation, had never had one,’ notwithstanding that the Eccles building underwent a comprehensive renovation between 1999-2003 that included a replacement of the roof and building systems. Your testimony raises serious questions about the project’s compliance with the National Capital Planning Act, which requires that projects like the Fed headquarters renovation be approved by the National Capital Planning Commission. Although minor deviations from approved plans may be inevitable, your testimony appears to reveal that the project is out of compliance with the approved plan with regard to major design elements.”
Jerome Powell, AKA "TOO LATE," is spending billions renovating the Fed's HQ.
In his recent testimony, he slipped up and revealed he might also be violating the law.
The Trump Administration is demanding answers, and we're going to hold him accountable. ???? pic.twitter.com/cDsMKGrVM8
— Office of Management and Budget (@WHOMB) July 10, 2025
Powell, whose term ends in May 2026, has refused to push for lowering interest rates, angering Trump, who in mid-July said he had not ruled out firing Powell. Powell cannot unilaterally lower interest rates; he leads the Federal Reserve Board, and the Board makes that decision jointly. Last November, Powell declared he would not step down if Trump asked him to; in August 2024, Trump had said on the campaign trail, “I think I have a better instinct than, in many cases, people that would be on the Federal Reserve or the chairman.”