Trump Rages About Powell Probe In Tarmac Scrum Outside Air Force One: ‘It’s Not Dropped!’

President Donald Trump raged against the Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and a Fed building project while on the tarmac in Palm Beach, FL, Saturday, before heading back to Washington to attend the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

During a gaggle, a reporter asked how Trump felt about U.S. attorney Jeanine Pirro’s decision to drop the criminal investigation into the Federal Reserve chair.

Trump had alleged that Powell misrepresented the cost to Congress of a $2.5 billion renovation on the Federal Reserve’s headquarters, but critics claimed Trump was just going after another one of his enemies.

“Well, I wanna find out — you know, it’s not dropped,” Trump claimed. “What I wanna look at is, how can a building that I could have done for $25 million cost $4 billion? That’s a big thing, and he was in charge.”

Trump continued:

So, we’ll get to the bottom of it. I think Jeanine was fantastic, and she worked with other people on that. I tell you, I want to find out — I have an obligation to find out — this was done during Biden — but I have an obligation to find out — I would have done that building for $25 million, had money left over, and it would have been open a long time ago. I want to find out because, for the country.

Look, we have a railroad under construction in California that’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen under Gavin Newscum and I want to find out why that one is costing 20 times what it was projected to cost. Likewise, the Fed building is a small — I built a hotel in Washington, the Waldorf-Astoria — I built it for $201 million, and I believe it’s bigger than the Fed building. Add your bathrooms, you have a lot of — you know, it’s much tougher, much more expensive to build a hotel than an office. I want to find out how can a building of that size cost four — whatever it’s going to be — nobody knows, by the way, what it’s going to be. Kevin is going to be fantastic. Kevin Warsh — he may never get get to be in that building.

The reporter asked if Warsh had a smooth road to confirmation.

“I would imagine it’s smooth,” Trump answered, “But whether it is or not, somebody has to find out why that building that should have cost $25 million is costing billions of dollars. And you know why they need to find it out? For other buildings, because that’s not the only one. I think that’s the most egregious example.”

Watch above via C-SPAN.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!