Does a picture widely shared on social media authentically show partial demolition of the East Wing of the White House in October 2025? Yes, it does: The photo was first published by the Washington Post.. The image showed no signs of generative AI or other inconsistencies characteristic of recycled unrelated visuals.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on October 20, 2025. It opened:
JUST IN: The White House has begun DEMOLISHING portions of the East Wing of the White House to build Trump's $250 million ballroom -- despite earlier claiming it wouldn't 'interfere' with the existing White House structure. (Washington Post)
The post included an image. Here is what it looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of post at x.com/MeidasTouch)
The image was first published by the Washington Post earlier that day. It appeared in an article (archived here) titled:
White House begins demolishing East Wing facade to build Trump's ballroom.
The photo's caption read:
This photograph obtained by The Washington Post shows ongoing construction on the East Wing of the White House as President Donald Trump's proposed ballroom is built, on Monday. (Obtained by The Washington Post).
The Washington Post article initially said that the photo was not the only source of the story -- it was also "two people who witnessed the activity and spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe it".
The earliest saved copies of the article, from October 20, 2025 (here and here), confirmed that the image was present from the moment of publication and wasn't added later.
Lead Stories manually studied the picture, but did not find abnormalities -- such as nonsensical details or extra human appendages -- pointing to AI or a different place or time, and the weather in the picture was consistent with the conditions observed in Washington, D.C., on that day (archived here).
A later version of the Washington Post article, updated several hours after the publication, additionally cited President Donald Trump's in-person remarks (archived here) and his post on Truth Social (archived here). Both confirmed that construction of the ballroom had begun.
The same photo was shared (archived here) by the newspaper on its social media accounts.
