President Donald Trump made several comments about the state of construction at the Obama Presidential Center, with the former president’s foundation pushing back on the remarks.
During an Oval Office visit with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Trump veered from comments on wanting to add the country to the U.S. to a round of criticisms of the Obama Presidential Center, currently under construction in Chicago.
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WATCH HERE“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.”
Trump claimed Obama had sought to hire an inexperienced workforce with a focus on diversity, rather than “good, hard, tough, mean construction workers that I love," but did not substantiate that claim.
The Obama Presidential Center will not house the former president’s official library, which was designated as the first fully digital library following his presidency. Instead, it will serve as a museum, but also as a “forum for local and international gatherings,” and will feature numerous projects designed to inspire future leaders, according to its website.
Trump also railed about cost overruns at the facility, and offered the former president assistance in finishing the project.
He also argued that the “job has stopped” amid an ongoing lawsuit, but the Obama Foundation rejected that claim in a response Tuesday.
Chicago Politics
The lawsuit Trump referred to involved a Black-owned subcontractor that had filed a lawsuit against another contractor alleging racial discrimination in late January, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The Obama Foundation denied that construction had stopped, and that the project is still on track to be completed by 2026.
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SIGN UP “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,” the foundation said. “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.”
Finally, the foundation emphasized that the project is privately funded, and argued that it would generate up to $3 billion in economic activity once it opens.
