Did President Donald Trump's advisor Alina Habba discover a hidden 'fake Oval Office' used by former President Joe Biden? No, that's not true: There is nothing secret or hidden about the constructed Oval Office set. It is the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower building and has been used by multiple presidents, including Trump. Habba implied she discovered the "fake Oval Office" and that the teleprompter there proves Biden couldn't coherently speak on his own.
The claim appeared in a post published on X.com on March 11, 2025 (archived here) which opened:
Donald Trump's advisor, Alina Habba, discovered the fake Oval Office where Joe Biden allegedly pretended to be president.
The room includes a teleprompter positioned directly in front of him and a smaller desk for when he would play his role as president.
The whole setup looks like a Hollywood studio.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Wed Mar 12 20:11:32 2025 UTC)
The background of both of the above photos of Biden does not resemble the paneling in the background of Habba's video and dozens of public photos of events in the room. Lead Stories has asked the White House Historical Association to confirm if the Biden photos match the grasscloth wallpaper of another White House room and will update this report when they reply.
In the 20-second video included in the post, Habba says:
You guys, I just finished a show. We're in Biden's fake Oval Office everybody. And I've actually figured this out. I now know why. I now get it. There is a screen, teleprompter to the face. All I can say is, the last administration was a disgrace.
Habba did not "discover" a secret Oval Office set and it is not a room that was shuttered off, as the post claims.
The Oval Office set is in the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, adjacent to the West Wing of the White House. It has been used since 2012 by presidents including Barack Obama, Trump in both terms and Biden. Photos of Trump in the room are available on Getty Images (archived here) and photos of the room in use by Biden and other government officials are available on Almay photo agency website (archived here).
It accommodates a larger number of reporters and photographers and their equipment and replaces an older room in the same building, as the Washington Examiner wrote in 2021 (archived here).
Trump used the set when he addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 23, 2025 as video posted by the White House YouTube account (archived here) shows. A screenshot of the graphic of the seal behind Trump at 17-seconds in the video shown below is the same as the one Habba posted on her X account (archived here) about the interview she did on the set:
(Source: YouTube.com screenshot taken on Wed Mar 12 20:15:43 2025 UTC)
Here is a screenshot from Habba's video at 8-seconds:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Wed Mar 12 20:21:12 2025 UTC)
Habba implied in her video that the discovery she made was about the teleprompter in the room, insinuating Biden was fed lines rather than speaking off the cuff, not that she discovered a secret room. She did an interview with Benny Johnson on the Benny Show from the room as a post on his X account shows (archived here).
During Biden's presidency, the room was designed to look like the Oval Office for certain public appearances as the room is more accessible than the Oval office, and bigger, making it a better fit when there is more television equipment than can be accommodated by the Oval Office, as reported by Newsweek (archived here) and Poynter (archived here).
Other Lead Stories fact checks regarding Alina Habba can be found here.
