President Donald Trump on Tuesday offered to help out with the development of the Obama Presidential Center, which has been plagued by huge cost overruns and delays, with the project’s embrace of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies drawing significant attention recently.
Trump, who reshaped city skylines with towering skyscrapers throughout his business career, linked DEI to the problems at the massive Chicago project, which has seen costs spiral from an initial $350 million to $830 million in 2021, with no new updated figures available.
“Look, President Obama, if he wanted help, I’d give him help because I’m a really good builder and I build on time, on budget. He’s building his library in Chicago. It’s a disaster,” Trump said at the White House alongside Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
OBAMA LIBRARY, BEGUN WITH LOFTY DEI GOALS, NOW PLAGUED BY $40M RACIALLY CHARGED SUIT, BALLOONING COSTS
Trump was speaking about the Biden administration’s CHIPS Act — passed to boost domestic semiconductor research and manufacturing – and its DEI provisions when he pivoted to the Obama Presidential Center.
“[Obama] said something to the effect, ‘I only want DEI, I only want woke,’” Trump said. “He wants woke people to build it. Well, he got woke people and they have massive cost overruns. A job is stopped. I don’t know, it’s a disaster. And I don’t like that happening because it’s bad for the presidency that a thing like that should happen. He’s got a library that’s a disaster.”
Construction is still under way at the 19.3-acre site which will consist of a 225-foot-tall museum, a digital library, conference facilities, a gymnasium and a regulation-sized NBA court.
From the outset, the project touted “ambitious goals” for certain construction diversity quotas, with its contracts allocated to “diverse suppliers,” 35% of which were required to be minority-based enterprises (MBEs).
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A $40.75 million racially charged lawsuit filed earlier this year by a minority contractor against the project’s structural engineer shined a spotlight on the DEI-driven aspect of the project. The structural engineers claimed the minority contractor lacked sufficient qualifications and experience to perform its work, resulting in delays.
Trump on Tuesday said Obama was paying for prioritizing DEI over meritocracy.
“And he wanted to be very politically correct and he didn’t use good, hard, tough, mean construction workers that I love Marco,” Trump said, switching into his trademark deeper tone while addressing Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
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“I love those construction workers but he didn’t want construction workers. He wanted people that never did it before and he’s got a disaster in his hands. Many millions of dollars over budget and I would love to help him with it or somebody else I could recommend professionals, but it was not built in a professional manner.”
Emily Bittner, the vice president of communications at the nonprofit Obama Foundation, said Trump’s remarks were not based in facts and that the center itself is not involved in the lawsuit, nor did it delay the timeline of the facility which is set to open in 2026. The Obama Foundation oversees the center’s development and will also be housed at the center when it opens.
“Everyone who sees the Obama Presidential Center is blown away by its beauty, scale and the way it will be an economic engine for Chicago and a beacon of hope for the world,” Bittner told Fox News Digital in a statement. “We look forward to welcoming all visitors to the 19.3-acre campus next spring, to experience a presidential center that not only honors the Obamas’ legacy but also lifts up the next generation of leaders.”
Bittner said the hundreds of workers on site every day are a testament to the center’s progress and added that the project is being funded privately and not by the taxpayer.
The library at the center will be a digital one and not a physical one like other presidential libraries have, which are federally funded and have size restrictions.
Obama’s current presidential library is in Hoffman Estates in the northwest of Chicago and is expected to move to College Park in Maryland later this year.
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