Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell spoke highly Wednesday of President Trump’s visit last week to the central bank’s headquarters despite intense pressure he faces from the White House over interest rates.
Powell said it was an “honor” to host Trump at the Fed last week for a tour of the bank’s renovations to its campus in Washington, D.C., calling the summit a “good visit,” even after sparring with the president over the scope and scale of the project.
“It’s not something that happens very often at the Federal Reserve to have a president come over,” Powell said Wednesday after bank held interest rates steady.
Powell demurred when asked if Trump’s interest in the renovations was driven by the president’s displeasure with Fed interest rate policy. The chair instead touted his and Trump’s shared desire to wrap up the renovations as soon as possible.
“I was quite pleased to have the President say multiple times that what he really wanted to see was us getting this construction completed as soon as possible. That is our focus, and that’s what we’re going to,” Powell said.
Powell and the Fed have faced backlash from Trump and some GOP senators over the cost and length of renovations to the central bank’s headquarters.
As a self-funded independent agency, the Fed controls its own spending on building maintenance and upkeep. The White House and Republican senators accused the Fed of spending an exorbitant amount of money on unnecessary frills, with some lawmakers and Trump administration officials suggesting Powell could be fired for fraud.
The pressure culminated with Trump’s tour of the Fed last week, during which Powell showed the president the various repairs underway and explained the scope of the necessary fixes to the Fed’s buildings.
Trump and Powell then spoke to reporters following the tour, during which the Fed chair challenged the president’s claim of discovering even more unreported costs. Powell explained that Trump was referring to a building that had been completed five years ago.
Despite the brief moment of tension, Trump appeared to be satisfied with Powell’s explanations and didn’t claim to see any evidence of fraud.
“Look, I would love to see it completed, I don’t want to put that in this category,” the president said. “It’s a very complex thing that could have been made simple.”
Trump, who noted his own familiarity in construction during his career as a real estate developer, backed off the idea of firing Powell but continued to hammer the notion that interest rates, which are set by the Fed, must be lowered.
