| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
Sunday morning meetings to Friday nights with friends and everything in between. | |
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| President Trump toured the construction site at the Federal Reserve headquarters with the agency's current chair, Jerome Powell. | ||
| The president confronted Chairman Powell over cost overruns on the project. | ||
| Mr. Powell refuted the president's claims and clarified the figures. | ||
| The president was joined by South Carolina Republican Senator Tim Scott on the tour and afterwards spoke about interest rates. | ||
| Thank you | ||
| very much. | ||
| We're looking at the construction and we're with the chairman, as you know. | ||
| Chairman, come on over. | ||
| And we're just taking a look at what's happening. | ||
| You know, it's a tough construction job building basements where they didn't exist or expanding them and a lot of very expensive work. | ||
| There's no question about it. | ||
| And Tim has been with me for a long time and you're in charge of the committee. | ||
| Indeed, one of the reasons why I wanted to see it was the overruns of the expenses wanted to figure out why. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| So we're taking a look and it looks like it's about 3.1 billion. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It went up a little bit or a lot. | |
| So the 2.7 is now 3.1. | ||
| I'm not aware of that. | ||
| Yeah, it just came out. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I haven't heard that from anybody at the Fed. | |
| Yeah, it just came back. | ||
| Aren't those Fed at about 3.1 as well? | ||
|
unidentified
|
3.1? | |
| 3.1, 3.2. | ||
| This came from us? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| I don't know who does that. | ||
| You're including the Martin renovation. | ||
| You just added in a third building, is what that is. | ||
| That's a third building. | ||
| It's a building that's being built. | ||
| No, it was built five years ago. | ||
| We finished Martin five years ago. | ||
| It's part of the overall work. | ||
| So we're going to take a look. | ||
| We're going to see what's happening. | ||
| And it's got a long way. | ||
| Do you expect any more additional cost overruns? | ||
| Don't expect them. | ||
| We're ready for them. | ||
| But we have a little bit of a reserve that we may use, but no, we don't. | ||
| Expect to be finished in 2027. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We're well along, as you can see. | |
| Nice to take these off every once in a while when we're not under too much danger. | ||
| So any questions? | ||
| Mr. President, just a minute. | ||
|
unidentified
|
As a real estate developer, as a real estate developer, what would you do with a project manager who would be over budget? | |
| Generally speaking, what would I do? | ||
| I'd fire him. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do you think he was the president using co-wants to do that? | |
| Well, I'm here just really with the chairman. | ||
| He's showing us around, showing us the work. | ||
| And so I don't want to get that. | ||
| I don't want to be personal. | ||
| I just would like to see it get finished. | ||
| And in many ways, it's too bad it started. | ||
| But it did start, and it's been under construction for a long time. | ||
| It's going to be a real long time because it looks like it's got a long way to go. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, sir. | |
| So Mr. President, are there things the Chairman can say to you today that would make you back off some of the earlier criticism? | ||
| Well, I'd love him to lower interest rates. | ||
| Other than that, what can I tell you? | ||
| The country is doing really well. | ||
| I just briefed the chairman on the deal we made with Japan. | ||
| Japan is putting up $550 billion in order to lower their tariffs a little bit. | ||
| That way they have a little bit lower tariff. | ||
| And they also opened their country to free trade, which nobody thought was even a possibility. | ||
| And we get a zero tariff in the free trade. | ||
| We don't pay tariffs. | ||
| And they're going to pay 15% on everything they send into our country. | ||
| So it's great. | ||
| But they put up as you could call it seed money. | ||
| Let's call it seed money. | ||
| You could call it anything you want. | ||
| But it's a total of $550 billion. | ||
| So nobody thought any of that was possible. | ||
| And it's wonderful. | ||
| And we're doing pretty well with the European Union, likewise. | ||
| And we have some others. | ||
| They're all really big, and our country is going to make a lot of money. | ||
| We would be helped if interest rates would come down, but we're going to see how the board rules on that soon. | ||
| I'd love to see them come down a lot. | ||
| But we have a country that's thriving. | ||
| We had a dead country one year ago. | ||
| Today we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. | ||
| And we'll get this one finished. |