Donald Trump has said he would fire a building manager for overseeing cost overruns on the scale seen at the Federal Reserve as he ramps up pressure on Jerome Powell.

Mr Trump visited the Fed on Thursday to inspect major renovations of two central bank buildings where costs have escalated.

During a press conference at the Fed, the president claimed that the project was set to cost $3.1bn (£2.3bn), a figure that surprised the Fed chief, who shook his head. “I’m not aware of that,” said Mr Powell.

The president handed Mr Powell a piece of paper and the Fed chief then protested that Mr Trump had added the cost of a building he said had been completed five years ago.

Asked what he would do if a project manager let costs overrun in business, Mr Trump said: “I’d fire him”.

However, he ducked a question on whether he thought he could fire Mr Powell, who is accountable to Congress.

“I don’t want to be personal. I’d just like to see it [the building work] get finished,” he said.

The construction project has become increasingly contentious in recent weeks, amid speculation Mr Trump is seeking to use cost overruns on the project as an excuse to oust Mr Powell.

Mr Trump has been campaigning for months to get the Fed to cut interest rates, posting a regular stream of invective against Mr Powell on his Truth Social online platform.

This week he called for Fed’s benchmark rate to be 3 percentage points lower than the 4.25pc to 4.5pc rate it is now.

On Thursday night, he playfully punched Mr Powell while saying he should lower interest rates.

The Fed’s reluctance to move until it gauges the inflationary effect of Mr Trump’s tariffs has prompted the president to repeatedly threaten to sack Mr Powell before his term as Fed chairman ends next May.

American law prevents the president from ejecting the Fed boss for reasons related to monetary policy. The only potentially legal cause for removal would be “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance”.

Mr Trump is also wary of provoking a market meltdown if he is seen to attack the bank’s independence on monetary policy.

This has prompted the White House to look for other potential triggers – and they have alighted on the controversial renovation project at the Fed’s Washington headquarters.

The cost of the works was budgeted at $1.9bn (£1.4bn) when the project began in 2021, but has blown out to $2.5bn.

The Fed has said that higher post-pandemic costs for labour and materials were responsible, along with unexpected expenses related to asbestos removal and toxic soil contamination.

But Mr Trump’s senior aides have claimed the project is extravagant and wasteful. They alleged the plans included VIP dining rooms, executive elevators, water features and roof gardens – claims largely rejected by the Fed.

Several senior officials have sought to keep up the pressure by arranging to tour the building site and inspect the works personally. Mr Trump has now opted to join them.

The president has suggested he is unlikely to try and oust the chairman “unless he has to leave for fraud”. Several of Mr Trump’s aides, including those leading the campaign against the Fed, are in the frame to replace Mr Powell.

Thanks for joining us on this blog covering Donald Trump’s visit to the Fed. That’s all for now.

Donald Trump has said he feels good about his relationship with Jerome Powell after tonight’s meeting.

He said: “I feel good about it.

“Look, I have one dispute and that dispute could be some things with money, and where it comes from, and how it’s come from, and how it’s printed, and where it’s printed and all of the standard things with the Fed.

“But I just want to see one thing happen and that’s very simple simple: interest rates have to come down.”

Donald Trump has ducked questions tonight over whether Jerome Powell should be fired, after months of criticism of the Fed chair.

Asked whether the Fed building works was a fireable offence, he said: “Look, I would love to see it [the building work] completed. I don’t want to put that in this category.

“[The building project is] a very complex thing that could have been made simpler.”

Donald Trump has discussed interest rates with the Fed chairman, Jerome Powell.

He said: “We had a little talk about it and I though it was a very productive talk.

“He’ll be able to tell you at his next meeting but I will say he did say the country is doing really well. And the country is really doing well.”

He added: “There was no tension.”

Donald Trump has said rates should come down to save the US taxpayer a trillion dollars a year.

He said: “The money is pouring in - we want to get interest rates down.

“Without us the whole world collapses so we should have the lowest interest rates.

“If you took it down three [percentage] points, not a little bit, we would save more than a trillion dollars.”

Donald Trump has criticised the complexity of building works being done by the Fed.

“It would have been good if they didn’t build it,” he said.

Donald Trump has said he does not want to get personal about the Fed, after months of attacks on its chairman.

“I don’t want to be personal. I’d just like to see it [the building work] get finished,” he said.

Then he playfully punched Mr Powell while saying he should lower interest rates.

Donald Trump is suited and walking around the Fed building site in a white hardhat.

“It’s a tough construction job,” he said. “There’s a lot of expensive work - no doubt about it.”

“So we’re taking a look. Looks like it’s about $3.1bn.”

“I’m not aware of that,” said Mr Powell, before realising that Mr Trump had added a building completed “five years ago”.

Donald Trump has arrived at the Fed for a tour of building work that the US president and his allies have widely derided.

The row over the cost of the construction project comes as Mr Trump continues to lobby Jerome Powell, the Fed chairman, to dramatically slash the Fed’s benchmark interest rate under the belief that inflation is not a problem. However, Mr Powell wants to see how Trump’s tariffs impact the economy before making any rate cuts that could potentially cause inflation to accelerate.

The renovation project has emerged as a possible justification by Trump to take the extraordinary step of firing Mr Powell for cause, an act that some administration officials have played down given that the Fed chair’s term ends in May 2026.

Tonight’s rare presidential visit to the Fed is happening less than a week before the central bank’s 19 policymakers gather for a two-day rate-setting meeting.

They are widely expected to leave the Fed’s benchmark interest rate in the 4.25pc-4.50pc range where it has been since December, as they wait to see how the economy performs in the face of the administration’s tariffs and other economic policies.

Donald Trump has repeatedly demanded that Fed chairman Jerome Powell slash US interest rates and has frequently raised the possibility of firing him. However, the president has said he does not intend to do so.

On Tuesday, Mr Trump called the Fed chief a “numbskull”.

Donald Trump has posted on social media that he is “getting ready to head over to the Fed to look at their, now, $3.1 Billion Dollar (PLUS!) construction project”.

Traders have lowered their confidence in the number of US interest rate cuts by the end of the year.

Donald Trump has waged a verbal war on the Federal Reserve, repeatedly demanding that its chairman, Jerome Powell, lowers borrowing costs.

But traders have today lowered their confidence of two quarter of a percentage point cuts by the end of the year.

It came as fresh figures showed that fewer US workers applied for unemployment benefits last week, a potential signal of easing redundancies. A separate report from S&P Global suggested growth in US business activity accelerated in July, and the preliminary results easily topped economists’ expectations.

That helped solidify expectations on Wall Street that the Federal Reserve will hold interest rates steady at its next meeting next week.

The European Central Bank, which had earlier been cutting its rates, also held steady on Thursday as it waits to see how Mr Trump’s tariffs affect the economy.

The Federal Reserve, known for its tight lips, structured formality and extraordinary power to shape the global economy, opened up a costly building renovation today to reporters ahead of a visit by Donald Trump.

Reporters wound through cement mixers, front loaders, and plastic pipes as they got a close-up view of the active construction site that encompasses the Fed’s historic headquarters, known as the Marriner S. Eccles building, and a second building across 20th Street in Washington.

Fed staff said that greater security requirements, rising materials costs and tariffs, and the need to comply with historic preservation measures drove up the cost of the project, which was budgeted in 2022 at $1.9bn (£1.4bn).

The staff pointed out new blast-resistant windows and seismic walls that were needed to comply with modern building codes and security standards set out by the Department of Homeland Security. The Fed has to build with the highest level of security in mind, Fed staff said, including something called “progressive collapse”, in which only parts of the building would fall if hit with explosives.

During the tour, Fed staff also showed the lift shaft that congressional critics have said is for “VIPs” only. Mr Powell has since said it will be open to all Fed staff. The renovation includes an 18-inch extension so the elevator reaches a slightly elevated area that is now accessible only by steps or a ramp. A planning document that said the elevator will only be for the Fed’s seven governors was erroneous and later amended, staff said.

Plans for the renovation were first approved by the Fed’s governing board in 2017. The project then wended its way through several local commissions for approval, at least one of which, the Commission for Fine Arts, included several Trump appointees.

The commission pushed for more marble in the second of the two buildings the Fed is renovating, known as 1951 Constitution Avenue, specifically in a mostly glass extension that some of Trump’s appointees derided as a “glass box”.

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