Pres Trump tried to make the cost of renovation look much higher by adding in the cost of a third building's renovations that were finished five years ago.
From the cited article ...
... Trump said the cost of the years-long project was now "about $3.1 billion" rather than the $2.7 billion previously stated by Powell.
"So we're taking a look, and it looks like it's about 3.1 billion, went up a little bit or a lot. So the 2.7 is now 3.1, it just came out," he said, reading from a piece of paper, as Powell looked on and shook his head negatively before interjecting.
The chairman replied, "I haven't heard that from anybody," and asked if the paper Trump was reading from came from the central bank.
At that point, Trump handed him the paper and continued talking while Powell pulled out his reading glasses to look.
He then told the president that the higher number he was claiming included a separate project that wasn't part of the renovation at issue.
"You just added in a third building," he said.
When Trump replied that the building in question was currently "being built," Powell spoke up once more to disabuse the president of his misunderstanding of what he was reading.
He told Trump that he was mistakenly counting long-completed renovations to a building named for William Martin Jr., who served as Fed chair from 1951-1970, as part of the renovation of the Fed's main headquarters. ...
