President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell over his multibillion-dollar renovation of two of the central bank’s buildings in Washington, D.C., at the same time he is pursuing his own costly, controversial project: the demolition and construction of a new East Wing of the White House.

“They’re spending $4 billion on renovating a building that should have cost 25 million bucks,” Trump said at a forum last year. The Office of Management and Budget has compared the renovation to the “Palace of Versailles.”

The White House, meanwhile, has undergone a number of renovations in recent months — most notably the razing of the historic East Wing to make room for a new mammoth ballroom. The president personally went shopping for marble and onyx for the ballroom in Florida earlier this month.

Asked about the dueling renovation projects, White House spokesman Davis Ingle called it “an apples to oranges comparison that only the left-wing media would attempt to make.”

“President Trump is making the White House beautiful and giving it the glory it deserves at zero cost to taxpayers. Meanwhile, ‘Too-Late’ Powell has completely botched the Federal Reserve renovations — just like his handling of America’s monetary policy,” Ingle said in a statement.

A spokesperson for the Federal Reserve declined to comment.

Bryan Clark Green, an architectural historian and former appointee to the National Capital Planning Commission, said the projects “are similar in a lot of ways.” They’re both “trying to accommodate new and unanticipated uses in historic buildings,” he said, while the Fed project has been moving along at a more “methodical” and “traditional” pace.

Here’s a look at everything you need to know about the two projects, including the similarities and differences.

Costs

The estimated cost of both projects has gone up substantially from what was initially expected.

Fed: The original estimate for the Fed renovations back in 2019 was $1.4 billion, Fed documents show. They’re now estimated to cost over $2.4 billion.

White House: The original estimate for the East Wing project was $200 million back in July. Trump said in December that number was up to $400 million, while also saying the project was under budget.

Why have costs gone up?

Fed: The bank has given a number of reasons for the spiraling costs, including changes recommended during agency reviews, rising supply and labor costs, the discovery of more asbestos on site than originally anticipated, toxic contamination in the soil, and other issues.

Powell has said the bank scaled back some of the originally planned elements of the renovation to reduce costs.

White House: The president has said the price tag went up because the size of the ballroom has increased from one that could seat 450 people to one that could accommodate 1,000.

“So, I started off with a building, half of the seats, then it just kept growing and growing, and the money kept pouring in and pouring in,” Trump told The New York Times last week. “So I said, ‘All right, I’ll go a little bit larger,’” he added.

“So then I said: ‘Well, OK, let’s max it out. This is more like Trump, isn’t it? Let’s max it out.’”

Who’s paying?

Fed: The Justice Department suggested prosecutors were investigating the cost overruns on Fed renovations to protect “taxpayer dollars,” but the project is being funded entirely by the Fed. Unlike most federal agencies, the Fed pays for its own operations, primarily by generating income from interest on government securities and fees charged to banks. Excess profits are returned to the U.S. Treasury.

White House: Trump has said the tab for the construction will be picked up entirely by private donors, as well as by the billionaire president. The White House has released a partial list of 37 donors but has not said how much they’ve donated. Donors will also be able to remain anonymous if they choose to do so. Among the contributors are Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Comcast, the parent company of NBCUniversal.

Justification

Fed: The Fed maintains the project is a necessity, saying on its website that the project “involves a complete overhaul and modernization that preserves two historic buildings that have not been comprehensively renovated since their construction in the 1930s.”

Both the Marriner S. Eccles building, which was finished in 1937, and the nearby 1951 Constitution Ave. building, completed in 1932, need lead and asbestos abatement and have outdated electrical, plumbing, ventilation and fire suppression systems, according to the site.

“The project will reduce costs over time by allowing the Board to consolidate most of its operations” and will “restore and enhance space for the public along the National Mall,” the site says.

White House: Administration officials likewise say that their project is sorely needed and that the now-demolished East Wing — which was expanded and remodeled in 1942 — was plagued with issues including problems with the roof, leaks, mold, wiring and safety code violations.

But primarily, Trump has talked about how he wants a ballroom for large-scale functions and meetings.

“People love it, they love the ballroom. We need it,” he told reporters earlier this month. “They’ve needed it for a long time, they needed the larger building, and this ballroom will be the best anywhere in the world.”

Trump has also made a number of cosmetic changes to the White House, including remodeling the Lincoln bathroom, which was last redone in 1945, and adding gold fixtures and trim to the Oval Office. The White House has not said who paid for it or how much it cost.

“Art Deco doesn’t go with, you know, 1850 and civil wars and all of the problems,” Trump said last fall. “But what does is statuary marble. So I ripped it apart and we built the bathroom. It’s absolutely gorgeous and totally in keeping with that time.”

Scope

Fed: Together, the two Fed properties — the Eccles Building, which is the central bank’s headquarters, and the nearby Constitution Avenue building — make up 400,000 square feet.

White House: The new East Wing is expected to be 89,000 square feet, including the 22,000-square-foot ballroom.

When will the work be completed?

Fed: Powell has said he expects the Fed renovations to be completed by fall 2027.

White House: The construction is expected to be completed sometime in summer 2028, according to a court filing from the National Park Service.

Different rules

Fed: Both of the Fed buildings are listed in the District of Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites. The Constitution Avenue building is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Those designations bar the buildings from being replaced and require that any renovations be carried out in coordination with multiple federal and local preservation agencies.

Powell told a Senate committee in June that steps were taken to preserve features that were torn up in the renovation.

“We took down the old marble; we’re putting it back up. We’ll have to use new marble, where some of the old marble broke,” he said.

White House: The White House demolished the East Wing in October while preserving some of the original elements for future use and has argued that Trump had the power to order the demolition without permission from outside authorities.

Josh Fisher, the director of management and administration for the White House, said at a hearing earlier this month that “cost analysis proved that demolition and reconstruction provided the lowest total cost ownership and most effective long-term strategy.”

Approval process

Fed: The project has gone through multiple reviews since 2019 and involved consultations with the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC), Commission of Fine Arts, District of Columbia Public Space Committee, District of Columbia State Historic Preservation Office and the National Park Service, the central bank said.

The bank has argued it wasn’t required to do the reviews but did so as a courtesy.

The Fed Board also “informed congressional oversight committee leadership of the plan to consolidate operations (in the two buildings) at an early stage,” the site says, and the project has undergone an audit from the Fed’s inspector general.

The NCPC gave final approval of the site plans in 2021 after an almost two-year review.

After complaints from the White House about the costs over the summer, Powell asked the IG to review the project again.

White House: The White House did not submit plans with the NCPC before it demolished the East Wing but filed preliminary plans with the commission last month.

The commission, which is chaired by Trump’s staff secretary, Will Scharf, and includes other Trump allies, seemed enthusiastic about those plans at a Jan. 8 hearing. The White House is scheduled to present more detailed plans to the board next month, and the panel is expected to vote on the plans in early March.

In October, Trump also fired all six members of the Commission of Fine Arts, the independent federal agency that would have reviewed the ballroom project. A White House official said the president wanted to “appoint a new slate of members to the commission that are more aligned with President Trump’s America First Policies.”

Legal challenges

Fed: Trump told reporters in late December that he was thinking of suing Powell for “incompetence” related to the renovations.

“These are small buildings. He said, $4 billion more, it’s going to end up costing more than $4 billion,” said Trump, who’s repeatedly pressured Powell to lower interest rates.

It’s unclear where he got the $4 billion figure from, and he was a bit more understanding of some of the costs after he toured the renovations with Powell in July, when he acknowledged it was “a tough construction job.”

“There are things that could have been different. Look, there’s always Monday morning quarterbacks; I don’t want to be that. I want to help them get it finished,” Trump said then.

On Sunday, Powell revealed that the Justice Department had served the bank with “grand jury subpoenas, threatening a criminal indictment” related to testimony he gave before the Senate banking committee about the renovations. He also said he believed the true impetus for the investigation was to put pressure on him to lower interest rates.

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, a longtime Trump ally, said in a post on X that her office had “contacted the Federal Reserve on multiple occasions to discuss cost overruns and the chairman’s congressional testimony, but were ignored, necessitating the use of legal process — which is not a threat. The word ‘indictment’ has come out of Mr. Powell’s mouth, no one else’s.”

White House: The National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States filed suit over East Wing renovations in December, alleging the administration was steamrolling ahead without the proper review or process.

“There is no statute that provides the President with the authority to demolish the White House or construct a ballroom on the White House grounds. And the President has pointed to no statute giving him such authority,” the trust, a private nonprofit chartered by Congress to help preserve historical sites, argued.

The administration countered in court filings that the president has the authority to make needed changes.

“The President possesses statutory authority to modify the structure of his residence, and that authority is supported by background principles of Executive power,” it argued.

It also said it does not need to submit plans to the NCPC or the Commission of Fine Arts, as has been traditionally done by the White House, but is doing so anyway.

The trust countered that the White House belongs to the public, not the president, and is seeking a court order blocking the project from proceeding without congressional authorization.

A hearing in the case has been scheduled for Jan. 22.