President Trump believes this is his golden opportunity.
The president revealed that he’s still eager to crack open Fort Knox and personally ensure that the nation’s gold reserve — valued at nearly $700 billion — is still in the highly secure bullion depository following an uproar about it last year.
“We wanted to go and knock on the door of Fort Knox — a very thick door — and to see whether or not we have any gold in there,” Trump told “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson” in an interview that dropped Sunday.
Last year, former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) boss Elon Musk reacted to a social media user’s suggestion that he should inspect the country’s gold reserves.
The gold stash in the uber-secure Kentucky facility accounts for half of the government’s gold supply.
It’s not fully clear when the facility last went through a comprehensive audit.
“It’s a very interesting question. We played with that. I wonder if they left the gold in Fort Knox, because they steal a lot,” the president mused. “I do want to go to Fort Knox sometime.”
“I want to see if the gold is there, which I’m sure it will be.”
Access to its vaults has been heavily restricted for decades.
Back in 1974, journalists and a Congressional delegation were let in for a tour amid speculation that the government’s prized gold stash had been looted.
In 2017, then-Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin entered Fort Knox to see the gold stash.
There’s at least 147.3 million ounces — 9.2 million lbs. — worth of gold sitting in the vaunted bullion, whose elaborate security has become something of a cultural phenomenon.
The government assesses the book value of $42.22 per ounce, totaling about $6.2 billion, according to data from the US Mint. But that’s far below market value, which is hovering around $4,700 an ounce.
Technically, the largest gold vault in the US and in the world sits in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Building, but that includes other countries’ stashes too.
Additionally, Fort Knox’s importance of the US economy is not what it used to be, given that the US ditched the gold standard for the dollar in 1971. For over a century before that, the government kept stockpiles safe to back the dollar.
Now it’s just another asset held by the Federal Reserve.
Machinations about cracking open Fort Knox to inspect Uncle Sam’s gold reserves eventually died down after Musk elevated the issue last year.
Throughout his second term, Trump has returned to his roots as a real estate mogul, frequently inspecting and renovating government properties.
Last week, for example, in a first for the country, he rode the presidential motorcade down the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to personally see the renovations being done there. Trump had ordered his “pool guy” to put an “American flag blue” coating on the iconic monument.
