Brady calls Trump out on Capitol renovation

Donald Trump, head of a real estate empire, must know a thing or two about wrapping buildings in scaffolding for renovations.

Trump, as a reality television star, must also be familiar with props and other stage settings.

But how much does the Republican front-runner for president know about the renovations underway on the U.S. Capitol's dome?

Not so much, according to Rep. Bob Brady, the Philadelphia Democrat who serves as minority chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Administration, which is overseeing the renovation.

Brady took issue with claims Trump made during a campaign rally Monday in Dallas.

Trump said a construction firm involved in the renovation recently told him it had too little time to complete work on the dome before the next president's inauguration in January 2017.

Trump cast that scaffolding as a political prop for government inefficiency.

"So they're going to take all the scaffolding down, pay millions of dollars to do that. Millions," Trump told the crowd. "And then after the inauguration, they're going to pay millions of dollars more to put it up again."

The Associated Press reported that the rally, in the Dallas American Airlines Center, filled at least three-quarters of the venue's 20,000 seats.

The crowd booed loudly when Trump made his claim and then cheered when he said he would simply make the construction firm work faster.

"They're going to take it down and put it back up," Trump said. "Can you believe it?"

No, Brady advises, you cannot believe it.

Trump, Brady said, has the facts all wrong.

"Though it may look like it at times, we are not running some kind of reality TV show here," Brady said. "We don't pull down scaffolding from the Capitol dome for a TV shot just to reerect it when the cameras are gone."

A spokeswoman for Trump's campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Brady said the exterior dome renovation is due to be done before the next president's inauguration.

This is the first complete restoration of the dome since 1960, according to Brady's committee.

The work, estimated to cost $95 million, started with a contract awarded in November 2013. Some of the scaffolding is due to be removed starting in November. The renovation schedule calls for almost all of the exterior scaffolding to be removed by next spring. Scaffolding on the dome's interior should be removed by fall 2016.

"Mr. Trump will be able to see this for himself on Inauguration Day from the Mall, as I am quite confident he will only be there as a guest," Brady said.

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@ByChrisBrennan