Claim:
In November 2025, Congress blocked President Donald Trump’s access to taxpayer funds until he paid the company that demolished the East Wing.
Rating:
In November 2025, a social media rumor alleged that Congress cut off U.S. President Donald Trump’s access to taxpayer funds unless he first paid the company said to have demolished the White House’s East Wing to make room for a ballroom.
Work on the demolition started in late October to accommodate Trump’s planned ballroom. Although the president told reporters that the privately funded project wouldn’t interfere with the existing building, crews ultimately ended up demolishing the entire East Wing.
One Threads post (archived) with the claim read: “JUST IN: Congress Block Donald Trump’s Access to All Taxpayer Funds After Federal Court Orders Him to Immediately Pay ACECO Demolition Company Their Owed Balance Plus $500,000 in Compensation Over the Ongoing White House East Wing Dispute.”
(Threads user @rex_marchese14516)
Similar claims also spread on Facebook, Instagram and X.
However, despite many people believing the story and sharing it as factual, no evidence supports any of the claims.
Searches on DuckDuckGo, Yahoo and Bing for terms such as “ACECO Demolition Company lawsuit,” “East Wing demolition dispute,” “Congress freezes Trump taxpayer funds,” “federal court orders Trump to pay ACECO” and related keywords yielded no credible results. If Congress had truly taken the unprecedented step of blocking a sitting president’s access to taxpayer funds, or if a federal court had issued a ruling compelling Trump to personally pay a contractor, such news would have generated extensive national and international coverage. Yet no reputable media outlet reported anything resembling the events described in the social media posts.
Likewise, there were no official statements from ACECO, the White House, Congress, or any court confirming that such actions occurred. Rather, the rumor appeared to be one of numerous fabricated political stories circulating on social media, designed to drive traffic and ad revenue to low-credibility websites.
As such, we have rated this claim as false.
How we know this story is false
There were several red flags indicating that both the story and the accompanying image were fabricated.
To begin with, Hive Moderation, an online artificial intelligence (AI) detector, found the image featured in posts spreading the claim highly likely to have been generated using AI.
(Hive Moderation)
Moreover, the image itself showed several signs of AI generation. In the photo on the left, Trump appeared twice, and the photo on the right included the text “Demo Inc.”, which has no connection to the demolition of the East Wing.
(Threads user @rex_marchese14516)
Some social media posts with the story redirected to an article on an advertisement-filled websites (archived) that started:
Congress Blocks Trump’s Access to Taxpayer Funds After Court Orders Immediate Payment to ACECO Demolition Company
In a sweeping move that has sent shockwaves through Washington, Congress has formally blocked President Donald Trump from accessing any taxpayer funds after a federal court ruled that he must immediately pay ACECO Demolition Company their outstanding balance—along with an additional $500,000 in compensation—following the company’s lawsuit over unpaid fees for the controversial East Wing demolition project.
The federal court’s ruling, delivered earlier this week, concluded that the White House and President Trump failed to honor contractual obligations to ACECO, the firm hired to carry out the rapid teardown of the East Wing. According to court documents, ACECO completed the demolition work months ago but repeatedly attempted—and failed—to collect the remaining payments owed by the administration.
ACECO later filed suit, accusing the Trump administration of “deliberate non-payment,” “contractual breach,” and “misuse of public resources.” The court agreed, stating that Trump was personally responsible for authorizing the financial delays and must now settle the full debt without relying on taxpayer funding.
Within hours of the ruling, congressional leaders from both parties convened an emergency session to ensure that Trump could not use federal money to pay off the court-mandated debt. The resulting congressional directive temporarily freezes the President’s access to public funds, limiting his ability to draw on any taxpayer-supported accounts connected to discretionary executive spending.
House Appropriations Committee members said the decision was made to “protect public money from being used to clean up the President’s private legal and financial obligations.” One committee member stated that the ruling “makes clear that this debt is personal, not governmental, and therefore cannot be paid with public funds.”
The White House has not released an official statement, though sources close to the administration have described the internal atmosphere as “tense” and “chaotic,” with aides scrambling to assess next steps. Legal analysts say that unless Trump pays ACECO quickly, he could face additional penalties, including interest charges or potential seizure orders.
AI-detection tools suggested the story was not written by a human. Both GPT Zero and Copyleaks flagged the text as highly likely to be AI-generated, estimating a 100% probability that the passage originated from an AI model. (Research shows AI-detection software is imperfect. Readers should consider the tools’ results with skepticism.)
(GPTZero)
The article’s tone, structure and emotional language also indicated that AI software helped create it.
We’ve fact-checked a related rumor, claiming that ACECO Engineering & Construction, a firm involved with the White House East Wing demolition, called out Trump over unpaid balances from the job. In reality, ACECO Engineering & Construction is based in the United Arab Emirates and uses a different name and logo from ACECO, the Maryland demolition company that truly participated in the East Wing project.
Sources
“AI Content & Text Authenticity Detection.” Copyleaks, https://copyleaks.com/. Accessed 19 Nov. 2025.
Christensen, Laerke. “Construction Company ‘called out’ Trump over Unpaid White House East Wing Demolition Bills?” Snopes, 6 Nov. 2025, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/unpaid-bills-east-wing-demolition/.
Esposito, Joey. “Trump Said New White House Ballroom Construction Wouldn’t ‘Interfere with the Current Building.'” Snopes, 21 Oct. 2025, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/trump-white-house-ballroom-construction/.
“GPTZero Dashboard.” GPTZero Dashboard, https://app.gptzero.me/. Accessed 19 Nov. 2025.
Hive Moderation. https://hivemoderation.com/ai-generated-content-detection. Accessed 19 Nov. 2025.
Kar, Sujita Kumar, et al. “How Sensitive Are the Free AI-Detector Tools in Detecting AI-Generated Texts? A Comparison of Popular AI-Detector Tools.” Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine, vol. 47, no. 3, May 2025, pp. 275–78. PubMed Central, https://doi.org/10.1177/02537176241247934.
Lee, David Emery, Jessica. “4 Tips for Spotting AI-Generated Pics.” Snopes, 16 Apr. 2023, https://www.snopes.com//articles/464595/artificial-intelligence-media-literacy/.
Rascouët-Paz, Anna. “Trump Demolished Entire White House East Wing?” Snopes, 23 Oct. 2025, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/trump-east-wing-white-house/.
