President Trump’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Scott Turner made a video in the current HUD headquarters, the Robert C. Weaver Federal Building, which was completed in 1968.
In a hallway, the former NFL player and state senator from Texas stopped in front of a utility cart positioned under a section of the ceiling where a tile was missing.
Turner stopped and looked up at the open space of the ceiling and said: “Damaged roof tiles, that you can just break with your hand.” He then put his hand into the cart and grabbed a piece of the ceiling tile and broke it in two. “So that means there’s water. That means there’s leaking.”
Turner asked the man filming him: “Did this fall on anyone?”
When the man said, “No, sir,” Turner said, “Okay good,” and then turned to the cameraman, smiled and said, “Well it won’t be long. It won’t be long.”
After a pause, still standing in front of the cart, Turner turned toward people down the hallway and asked again, “No one got hurt, correct?” The answer remained the same: no, no one got hurt.
With the video, Turner wrote: “The current HUD HQ is falling apart everywhere you turn. I witnessed this firsthand today. It’s not suitable for HUD staff or the people we serve. Moving day can’t come soon enough.”
The current HUD HQ is falling apart everywhere you turn. I witnessed this firsthand today.
It’s not suitable for HUD staff or the people we serve. Moving day can’t come soon enough. pic.twitter.com/1LLwkZCVSf
— Scott Turner (@SecretaryTurner) July 21, 2025
Turner is relocating the headquarters of HUD from the Weaver Building to the National Science Foundation (NSF) headquarters building in Alexandria, Virginia, which was completed in 2017.
The American Federation of Government Employees Local 3403, which represents the 1,800 NSF workers who will be displaced, wrote: “At a time when they claim to be cutting government waste, it is unbelievable that government funding is being redirected to build a palace-like office for the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.” The union claims the new HUD HQ will include an executive gym and exclusive dining room.
More than one on X responded to Turner’s video with snark. As one replied: “Glad no one got hurt from that falling cork.” Another responded: “Ya those are cheap acoustic tiles in a drop ceiling. It’s normal to replace them and they’re of super cheap quality. Some of you people have zero [expletive] real life experience outside of your government jobs.”
[Note: The National Science Board will discuss the relocation of NSF at a meeting in Alexandria on Wednesday, July 23.]
The HUD move and Turner’s complaints occur as the Trump administration is actively excoriating the Federal Reserve, under chair Jerome Powell, for renovation projects at two buildings that President Trump says are too expensive and over budget. (Note: The plans for the Fed buildings renovations were approved in 2017, during the first Trump administration.)
While the HUD building causing Turner to create videos dates to 1968, the Fed’s restoration comprises two much older buildings: the Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve Board Building, which has not been comprehensively renovated since it was built in 1937, and the 1951 Constitution Avenue Building, which was built in 1932 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.