President Donald Trump says he wants 'to go to Fort Knox sometime.' See comments – The Courier-Journal
President Donald Trump is once again discussing the possibility of a visit to Fort Knox to check on the country’s gold supply that is stored at the depository.
In a May 10 interview on “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson,” the president said he “didn’t know” whether an audit was necessary, but expressed interest in seeing whether the gold was there.
“I do want to go to Fort Knox sometime,” Trump said. “I want to see if the gold is there, which I’m sure it will be.”
Here’s what to know.
Trump’s promise to investigate the Kentucky military base in February 2025 followed pressure from Elon Musk, a former adviser to the Department of Government Efficiency, on X, formerly Twitter, where he criticized the lack of an annual audit determining the amount of gold at the base.
“We hope everything’s fine with Fort Knox, but we’re going to go to Fort Knox — the fabled Fort Knox — to make sure the gold is there,” Trump said last year. “If the gold isn’t there, we’re going to be very upset.”
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent previously said an annual audit revealed all of the gold supply remains at the base.
“There was a report Sept. 30, 2024,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “All the gold is there. Any U.S. senator who wants to come and visit it can arrange a visit through our office.”
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul confirmed in a response on X that the base isn’t audited regularly, and USA TODAY reports the last audit at the Fort Knox reserve was in September 1974, when several Congressional representatives assured the American public that the supply remained intact, according to the U.S. Mint.
Fort Knox, which spans 108,955 acres across Hardin, Meade and Bullitt counties and is about 40 miles south of Louisville, is recognized for holding more than 147 million ounces of the U.S.’ gold reserves, more than any other base. The U.S. owns 8,133.46 metric tons of gold, according to the World Gold Council, which is more than any other nation and twice that of Germany’s, which sits at 3,351.53 metric tons.
The base has also previously stored several historic rarities, from the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution to Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. It was last toured in 2017 during the first Trump administration, where Kentucky U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and a few Congressional representatives entered the base in the first visit to nonauthorized personnel in more than 40 years.
Contributing: Amaris Encinas and Anthony Robledo, USA TODAY. Reach Marina Johnson at Marina.Johnson@courier-journal.com.