Trump’s Meeting With Carney Swerves To Claims About Hiring At Obama’s Presidential Center

President Donald Trump, veering off course from his Oval Office meeting Tuesday with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, slammed former President Barack Obama over the construction of his presidential center.

When asked by a reporter how long it will take for the Trump administration’s investments to appear in economic data, the president went off topic and claimed, without evidence, that Obama only wants to hire “DEI” and “woke” people to build his center in Chicago, as opposed to “good, hard, tough construction workers that I love.”

“It’s a disaster,” he said. “[Obama] said something to the effect of I only want DEI. I only want woke. He wants woke people to build it. Well, he got woke people. … He’s got a library that’s a disaster.”

Despite Trump’s assertion, Obama’s center will not house a presidential library.

Trump maintained that the center’s construction has “massive cost overruns” and that “the job has stopped,” claims that the Obama Foundation has denied.

In a lawsuit filed earlier this year, one of the project’s African American-owned local subcontractors, II in One, alleged that it was racially discriminated against by one of the main firms involved in the construction, identified as Thornton Tomasetti, according to the Chicago Tribune. But Thornton Tomasetti shot back, alleging that construction costs and delays were actually “all unequivocally driven by the underperformance and inexperience” of that subcontractor.

The center’s construction faced legal challenges over its plans to build in a public Chicago park, and as The Wall Street Journal reported in 2021, its delays have “set a modern record for time between a presidency and completion.”

“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,” Obama Foundation spokesperson Emily Bittner said 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.”

Trump also offered his assistance to the former president. “I don’t like that happening, because I think it’s bad for the presidency,” he said. “I would love to help him with it.”