Bulwark Takes - Powell Humiliates Trump With On-Camera Fact Check

Episode Date: July 25, 2025

Sam Stein and Ben Parker discuss a tense, awkward exchange between Donald Trump and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell during a staged visit about supposed cost overruns at the Fed's renovation project. Trump, clearly aiming to pressure Powell into resigning or create grounds to fire him, was directly fact-checked by Powell in real-time. They highlight this unusual public clash, criticizing Trump's manufactured outrage and praising Powell's willingness to push back, suggesting the entire episode is political theater designed by Trump to control the Federal Reserve.

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If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BenMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Hey guys, Sam Steyer managing editor at the Bullwork. I'm joined by Ben Park, our senior editor here at the Bullwork. We are here to talk about a awkward exchange. Maybe one of the more awkward ones I've seen in Trump 2.0 between President Trump and

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. We'll get into it. But you guys should subscribe to our feed because we break this stuff down for you so you don't have to watch it in real time. You're welcome, by the way. We don't like doing actually kind of like doing this. So basically for weeks now, Donald Trump's and trying to, you know, what I think is just kind of pressure or make Jerome Powell's life so miserable that Jerome Powell quits. But then there's this been this

other storyline that they may be trying to find a pretense to fire Jerome Powell because you can only fire the Fed chair for cause and so they've kind of glossed onto this issue of is the Fed renovation the renovating their headquarters is it like dramatically over cost and it's it's been dramatized and it's kind of crested to this moment where Trump in a very dramatic showing has gone down to the Fed along with Tim Scott and I guess some other officials. I didn't see many other officials, but apparently they were there to talk to the people there about what's going on with

the with the construction project. And Jerome Powell decided to show up today to go through it with him. And they're walking with hard hats. And then this happened. So we're taking a look. And it looks like it's about 3.1 billion, one 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. Yeah, I haven't heard that from anybody at the Fed. It just came out. Our notes had about 3.1 as well. 3.1, 3.2. Does this stand for us? Yes. I don't know who does that. from us? Yes. I don't know who does that. You're including the Martin renovation. You just add it in the third building is what that is. That's the 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.

I thought that was kind of delicious. I've never never seen some well, I've seen people dispute him in real time, but doesn't happen that on it often. Yeah, and that's because usually Trump doesn't spend that much time around people who are in a position independently to tell him he's wrong. And for good reason, the Fed chairman is one of those people. That's kind of the whole issue, Sam, is that the fed chairman was the independent of the president. Right. It's like, the president would do this. A head of state would do this big. No, you got your budget wrong.

We actually do spend this on defense. Drum Powell will do it. But I just thought that the way drum Powell did it was like, actually you added a building, it's like, it was just like, yeah, well, it's still a building. They're building. No, it's, it's five years old. It's like it was just like yeah, well, it's still a building they're building. No, it's it's five years old

And drop just kept for all it keeps wrong as well, you know that counts in the cost It's like I didn't know what the Statue of Libertations are when you're budgeting this stuff Are you with me that this is all sort of like designed to make pal just say, you know what fuck this shit I'm done. I don't want to deal with this uh, Powell, just say, you know what? Fuck this shit. I'm done. I don't want to deal with this. Either it's either that or it's, or it's, as you said, creating a pretext or Trump can fire him not because he refuses to lower interest rates as Trump wants, but

because supposedly there's waste, fog, fraud and abuse, whatever. Uh, but good for Jerome Powell for sticking it out and not doing the Chris Ray thing where he preemptively lays down and surrenders. Yeah, make it as hard for Trump as possible, right? Like if Trump needs to spend weeks on this, setting up his whole like, you know, fake justifications and tweeting about it and whatever, make him spend weeks on it. Good for Jerome Powell. Amen, brother.

Yeah. I mean, he's got eight months left. He's not going to, he's got eight months as the chair. He's still on the board. You know, like, you can hold on for eight months. Where were you when the fake Jerome Powell resignation letter surfaced? Oh man, I will never forget where I was. Where were you? Where were you?

I was here. Okay, yeah, that's why. So I think by the time I saw it, someone already pointed out, I think it was Jim in our chat was like, oh, cool seal they got there. It's not the Fed seal and it's got the class of AI, like fake letters that don't actually exist. Yeah, it made no sense. The wording was completely wrong.

All right. So Trump, they went into this whole, they did a tour after that little gaggle and say like maybe 15 to 20 minutes later Trump comes back out with Senator Tim Scott who chairs the banking committee and they're like brief in the press and I thought it was Just so funny For a couple reasons one was like Trump, you know, you could take the guy out of real estate But he clearly just loves this shit and he was going on. He's like, you know There's like he's called it a very luxurious situation with the renovation project he had real criticisms for the basement he said

basements are too expensive you know you got to deal with the water flow down there he called the underground parking lot he was very critical of the underground parking lot said they shouldn't have done that as well he thought that the the plywood, he was not very impressed with the plywood. He thought they spent too much to support or create security with the plywood. He said he would have gone a little bit cheaper with that. He was going down to the basics. Yeah, I'm sure he would.

Yes, he would cut corners here and there. So yeah, he had some thoughts about the aesthetics of the Fed building. Just wait till Trump finds out they're actually paying the contractors. He's going to be so mad. He did say he was talking about the hotel he had put up in the old post office building in DC. He's like, we did that for $200 million. I got a fact check that one.

First of all, I don't think he said I just think he put his name on it. That building way predates I think Trump. Yeah of all, I don't think he said, I just think he put his name on it. He said he built it. That building way predates, I think Trump. Yeah, no, no, they renovated it. They renovated it. He said they renovated it. We built, you know, you know, got it down to it. Studs, we put it back together. I don't think that's true, but it was there for a while.

And I'm not sure that it was the Trump organization that did it. I think he just licensed his name, but we'll have to fact check that one. The other thing that was kind of hilarious to me was Tim Scott. Tim Scott, at one point, or has Trump called him this guy over here, whose name I obviously can't remember. My Senator to the right here. Yes. I totally missed that.

Very good friend standing right here. You know, this guy, Tim Scott, I want to play the video cause he got all, it got a little incredulous and Tim Scott's a mile manor guy about the fact that they were even talking about cost overruns. If I'm honest, we had an honest candid conversation about some of the overruns at this building. We had it in my banking committee and he said we were wrong. And it turns out we were right. Thank God President Trump and his team took enough time to dig into some of the details

and the details are clear. We need to get this project done. We would like to keep it where it is or a little lower. But at the end of the day, the point is that instead of talking about interest rates, instead of talking about first time home buyers, instead of talking about the heat in our economy, that's a good thing. We're talking about an overrun on the Federal Reserve building, as opposed to the Federal Reserve objective of lowering

and keeping our economy full. It's like the only reason you're talking about is because Trump keeps bringing it up. No one else was talking about this two weeks ago. And the reason they're talking about it is because Trump wants to create this false justification for firing the Fed chair. So Tim Scott said going, thank God, Donald Trump drew our attention to these cost overruns. But why are we talking about cost overruns? It did make me realize I'm not that it's a new observation, but

just how much of this is just theater. It's like all theater like going down there is theater putting on the hard hat, just the whole like I'm going to show you this, you know, $5 trillion or whatever $500 million edition that you've done. Like all of it is just theater and that's it. It's actor. Yeah. So it was the, you know, in that clip we showed of Trump and Powell, the pulling the paper out of the pocket. Yeah. Paper is, you know, some, yeah, some, some white house staffer typed up, it costs too much money on a piece of paper. And that's what he handed to Powell, like for all we know. And you know, it's as long as we're not talking about Jeffrey Epstein,

it's working, right? I guess. But here you know, as long as we're not talking about Jeffrey Epstein, it's working, right? I guess. But here you just mentioned Jeffrey Epstein. So maybe it's not working. All right, man, I appreciate this. That was a fun little afternoon exercise from Trump. We'll see what happens. He said at the end, you know, I don't wanna,

he said, I don't wanna put it in that category when he's asked if this was a fireball offense for Powell. I think they, I don't think he's going to go through with it, but I do think he wants Powell to quit, and we'll see if Powell does it. It doesn't look like Powell's up for it though, so we'll see. Any last thoughts before we sound off? Yeah, last thing is just that with all this pressure he's putting on Powell, you pointed out that Powell only has a few months left in his term. Trump did originally nominate him, so Trump should know how long he's got left. This does mean,

I guess, that whoever the next person is inherits all of this pressure automatically, right? So even if it doesn't work on Powell, it sort of automatically applies to whoever the next person is. That's a little scarier. Well, you presume that he'll pick someone who will pre-commit to lowering interest rates, right? Like that's what he wants.

He thinks it has to happen. He's not going to nominate someone where it's a question mark, but we'll see. They have to get confirmed by the Senate too. All right, Ben Parker. Thanks, man. Appreciate you joining me. Thank you guys for watching. Appreciate you doing that.