Trump Softens Tone Toward Powell During Fed HQ Visit, Renews Push for Rate Cuts
In a rare and closely watched appearance at the U.S. Federal Reserve's Washington headquarters, President Donald Trump publicly downplayed tensions with Fed Chair Jerome Powell, while using the occasion to renew his long-standing call for significant interest rate cuts.
The visit, centered around a tour of the Fed's multi-billion-dollar renovation project, featured a mix of sharp policy messaging and unexpected levity. Trump jokingly suggested he might fire a project manager over cost overruns, but then quickly clarified that his remarks were not personal, patting Powell on the arm and insisting: 'I just want to see the project finished.'
Trump and Powell, both wearing white hard hats, led reporters through the construction site of the Fed's iconic Eccles Building. The tour turned momentarily tense when Trump cited a $3.1 billion price tag for the renovations, a figure Powell swiftly contested, stating it included a separate building completed years earlier.
Trump handed Powell a printed sheet showing the cost estimate, but Powell shook his head and explained the figure was misleading. When asked what he would do if a manager in his own company ran a project over budget, Trump replied bluntly: 'I'd fire him.'
Still, the president dismissed suggestions of conflict, telling reporters: 'There's no tension with Chairman Powell,' and adding that the issue at hand wasn't serious enough to warrant his dismissal.
Though Trump has publicly criticized Powell for over a year, and reportedly considered removing him in 2024, he softened his tone on Thursday. When pressed, Trump said he does not believe Powell should be fired and emphasized that his top priority was rate relief.
'I'd like to see interest rates go down. What more can I say?' Trump quipped, adding: 'I'm not putting this in a category of firing. I just want something very simple to happen: Rates should come down.'
Due to the Fed's communications blackout ahead of its July 30 policy meeting, Powell did not comment on monetary policy during the visit.
While previous Trump attacks on Powell were delivered on social media or in closed-door meetings, Thursday's appearance marked a notable public escalation — and one of the few times a sitting U.S. president has walked the halls of the Fed to directly express dissatisfaction.
The visit comes amid growing Republican criticism of the Fed's $2.5 billion renovation, which Trump allies have portrayed as extravagant and mismanaged. The president was accompanied by a number of key aides and Powell critics, including Budget Director Russ Vought, Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair, and FHFA Director Bill Pulte, who has called on Powell to resign and accused the Fed of misleading Congress.
Blair posted on X (formerly Twitter) earlier Thursday that the cost of the renovation now 'exceeds Versailles — adjusted for inflation.'
Fed officials have defended the construction, which includes the rehabilitation of the Eccles Building (built in 1937) and a second historic structure nearby. They say cost increases are largely tied to post-9/11 security requirements, including blast-resistant windows, as well as labor shortages and inflation in construction materials.
Earlier in the day, Fed staff gave journalists a behind-the-scenes look at the active site, where 700–800 workers are engaged in round-the-clock shifts. Officials acknowledged past missteps, such as a canceled plan for rooftop seating, but said changes like increasing elevator height were safety-driven.
The total cost has grown from $1.9 billion to $2.5 billion since 2020. Powell, facing intensifying pressure from GOP lawmakers, recently requested an internal audit of the project by the Fed's inspector general.
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Mystery surrounds the administration's motives after Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump's former personal lawyer, met last week with Epstein's imprisoned accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell. Her lawyer implied that Maxwell was open to a presidential pardon. Trump's record of using such power for political purposes has critics warning he may be seeking a deal that would politicize justice. The storm back home isn't abating. Two lawmakers, one Democrat and the other Republican, vowed Sunday to force a vote on the House floor on the release of Epstein case files. Such a vote could embarrass the administration and create a major political showdown. This came on a typically frenetic weekend that Trump spent in Scotland and that served as a metaphor for his turbulent influence on America and the globe. He juggled the highest-level diplomacy — talks with the EU's top official, Ursula von der Leyen — with a trip promoting his business empire, in this case his portfolio of exclusive Scottish golf clubs. His visit was greeted with street protests by caustic Scots and featured outbursts of extreme rhetoric — including his social media call for the prosecution of former Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump will come face-to-face Monday with pressure to force Israel to do more to mitigate a growing famine in Gaza. He'll see British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at his Turnberry resort in southwest Scotland before traveling with Starmer to Aberdeenshire, where Trump will inaugurate a new course at another club. Starmer last week said of the crisis in Gaza that 'we are witnessing a humanitarian catastrophe.' A significant trade deal that comes with many caveats Much is unknown about the scope of the trade deal with the EU, which will see a 15% tariff imposed on most of the bloc's exports and billions of dollars in purchases of US energy. But it extends a winning streak and a record of implementing campaign promises for a president who is imposing personal power and often idiosyncratic beliefs — for instance in the effectiveness of trade tariffs — on the US and the world. 'This was the big one. This is the biggest of them all,' Trump said Sunday after meeting von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission. Von der Leyen followed the accepted wisdom that praising Trump personally can provide political payoffs. 'He is a tough negotiator, but he is also a dealmaker,' she said. Trump has recently announced framework deals on trade with Japan and the Philippines — which both include higher tariffs that represent a fracturing of the 21st-century global free-trade arrangements. Trump believes that this system, which helped make the US a dominant global power, is nevertheless unfair on American workers and industries. And he rejects economists' arguments that raising tariffs increases prices for already-stretched US consumers. Traversing cranes move shipping containers stacked in Hamburg Port in Hamburg, Germany, on April is flexing power everywhere. He is gutting the federal government, dominating Congress, and exerting unprecedented pressure on law firms and universities to impose his right-wing ideology, all while seeking to intimidate media outlets. These are wins for his populist 'Make America Great Again' movement and its program to buckle what supporters see as liberal power. But as with Trump's outlier belief in tariffs, the long-term impacts that his actions could have on American society, the economy and democracy are alarming critics. Trump has politicized the legal system; his government funding cuts have hampered vital scientific research on critical subjects such as cancer; and his expanding of presidential power often tests the Constitution. Still, markets may welcome the EU trade deal framework, assuming it is fully implemented — hardly a given considering Trump's volatile history of threats and reversals. An EU-US trade war would have been a far worse outcome. But the agreement confirms suspicions that Trump's goal is not fairer trade but higher tariffs. Although existing tariffs have so far not harmed the economy as much as some experts feared, Americans will pay more for cars, food, luxuries and consumer goods. The inflationary impact on the economy, and Trump's likely appointment next year of a new Federal Reserve chair who will lower interest rates, could mean greater economic threats to come. There's also an important geopolitical aspect to the EU trade deal. The Europeans committed to buying $880 billion of energy from the US. This could make America's NATO allies less vulnerable to pressure from Russia at a time when the Western alliance is opposing Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. 'We still have too much Russian LNG (liquid natural gas) that is coming through the back door again to our European Union, and some Russian gas and oil still in the European Union, which we do not want anymore,' von der Leyen said. Epstein drama haunts Trump's Scottish golf trip Trump's frustration that a key political achievement has been overshadowed by the Epstein saga is unlikely to dissipate in the coming days. The controversy started because of conspiracy theories among Trump's base that claimed the disgraced financier did not take his own life in prison but was murdered, and that he left behind a client list of rich and powerful Americans who'd taken advantage of his alleged sex trafficking. These claims were promoted by Trump and allies including Pam Bondi and Kash Patel. When all three assumed positions of great power (Bondi is attorney general, and Patel is FBI director), their failure to release the files as promised caused a rupture in Trump's MAGA base, which the administration has failed thus far to repair. The political uproar explains why Blanche's meeting with Maxwell last week caused such consternation. Maxwell's lawyer told reporters after her second day of meetings with Blanche in Tallahassee, Florida, that she had answered every question truthfully and honestly. He also noted that the president has the power to pardon those convicted of crimes. 'We hope he exercises that power in a right and just way,' the attorney, David Oscar Markus, said Friday. Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell attend a benefit concert in New York in 2005. Joe Schildhorn/Blanche has so far not offered a detailed public account of the meetings. There is no evidence of wrongdoing by Trump in his relationship with Epstein, and the president appears to have severed the friendship long before the accused sex trafficker was charged with federal crimes. But the Justice Department's unorthodox approach is raising concerns that it goes beyond a public relations effort to convince MAGA voters the administration is doing something. Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison term, has an incentive for providing information that could ease her situation — and Trump has the power to do so. Questions over the president's motives became even more important when CNN and other outlets reported last week that Trump's name was mentioned in the Epstein files, along with those of some other prominent Americans. This does not mean that he or anyone else is guilty of wrongdoing. In fact, Bondi might have made the correct decision legally in refusing to release information that could harm the reputation of people not accused of crimes. 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