MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
White House officials say they still have a lot of questions about a renovation project at Federal Reserve headquarters.
SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
President Trump toured the construction site yesterday with Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, and both of them wore hard hats.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It's a tough construction job. They're building basements where they didn't exist or expanding them, and a lot of very expensive work. There's no question about it.
PFEIFFER: Officially, that's what the visit was about, but there's no separating that tour from an ongoing pressure campaign by Trump and his allies to get the Fed to lower interest rates.
MARTIN: NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith is here to tell us more about it. Good morning, Tam.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Morning.
MARTIN: OK. So tell us about this tour. What happened?
KEITH: It was contentious. Just the part we were able to see on camera included Trump presenting Powell with a document and the two men arguing over the cost and scope of the project. Trump, who has a background in real estate, even said that, generally speaking, he would fire someone who managed a project with cost overruns this large. And he said the word fired with a flare that he used to use on his show "The Apprentice."
MARTIN: So was this really about the construction project, or did they talk about monetary policy?
KEITH: Interest rates were front and center. Trump has been badgering Powell for weeks about this, even giving him the nickname Too Late. And then, with the Fed chairman standing right next to him, Trump was asked if there was anything Powell could say to make him back off some of the earlier criticisms.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: Well, I'd love him to lower interest rates.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Other than that?
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: Other than that, what can I tell you?
KEITH: While at the Fed, Trump repeatedly said he wanted interest rates lowered significantly.
MARTIN: So remind us again, what is the issue with the Fed building?
KEITH: Yeah. The project is very much over budget by hundreds of millions of dollars, in part due to steel tariffs, COVID, inflation and the challenges of retrofitting historic buildings with modern standards. But Trump didn't seem particularly satisfied, and neither were top aides who came with him on the tour, including budget director Russell Vought, who made it clear that this is not going away.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RUSSELL VOUGHT: This is our first site visit. We want to get to the bottom of what we can learn from it and how to do it better. And we're going to continue to ask questions, and we won't get ahead of anything else.
MARTIN: You know, just to remind that the Fed is supposed to be independent. I also want to remember that Trump actually appointed Chairman Powell in his first term. So what does the White House say about the criticism that what Trump is doing here is wildly inappropriate and it's interfering with that?
KEITH: Yeah. I just have to say, this was all highly unusual. The last president to visit the Fed was President George W. Bush in 2006 for a swearing-in ceremony. So the sight of President Trump scolding the Fed chairman about interest rates on his own ground was pretty remarkable. Last night, I asked Vought whether this was a pressure campaign, and Vought acted like these were two unrelated matters.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
VOUGHT: The president has a policy view about lower interest rates that is vitally important to the country economically and for the pocketbooks of the American people. And he is a builder that looks at largesse and just automatically starts to think about how - what he would do in that situation.
KEITH: He said the president has every right to talk about what he thinks the Fed should do.
MARTIN: So, Tam, though, I still think the big question here is whether this focus on the building is all a pretext to fire the Fed chairman.
KEITH: Yeah. Trump said firing Powell would be a big move he didn't think was necessary.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: You know, his term comes up soon. I think he's going to do the right thing. Everybody knows what the right thing is.
KEITH: He means lowering rates. Only, it's not even clear that Trump could legally fire Powell. And he's not the sole decider on interest rates. The entire Federal Reserve Board of Governors gets a vote.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Tamara Keith. Tam, thank you.
KEITH: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
