Claim:
On Dec. 18 and 19, 2025, the White House’s live cameras were turned off as U.S. President Donald Trump’s helicopter flew him to a hospital.
Rating:
A rumor circulating online on Dec. 18 and 19, 2025 claimed the White House “live cameras” had been turned off and suggested U.S. President Donald Trump was transported by helicopter to a hospital.
One Facebook post (archived) with the claim read: “So the White House live cameras are turned off and reports are his helicopter headed to the hospital again. Yes Virginia, maybe there is a Santa Claus.”
(Facebook user Reginald Reggie Magpayo)
The rumor spread across social media platforms including Facebook, Threads, Instagram, Bluesky, X and TikTok. The earliest version we found appeared on Threads (archived) around 7 p.m. EST Dec. 18.
In short, there was no evidence the White House “turned off” its live cameras on Dec. 18 and 19, 2025 because Trump’s helicopter was headed to a hospital. The message on the White House’s “Live News” website was a routine placeholder that appears when no livestream is running and has been used for months. We also found no credible reporting from major news outlets indicating Trump was hospitalized during that period, an event that would have been covered widely. We reached out to the White House, who told us the claim was “fake.” For these reasons, we rated this claim as false.
We have contacted the Secret Service for comment and will update this article if we receive a response.
How the rumor spread
The rumor appears to have been sparked by confusion over the White House’s “Live News” page, which is used for scheduled White House event livestreams rather than a continuous 24/7 camera feed.
On Dec. 19, 2025, the page displayed the message: “Stay tuned – we’ll be live again shortly.” However, that banner was not a breaking alert about an emergency, but rather a placeholder used when there is no active livestream. The Wayback Machine and archive.today tools showed the “Stay tuned” wording was not new and had appeared for months on the page when no livestream was running.
(archive.today)
There was also a legitimate oddity involving “Live News” website around the same time. The Associated Press reported that a YouTube creator’s personal-finance livestream briefly appeared on the White House live page for at least eight minutes on Dec. 18, prompting questions about whether the site had been hacked. The White House told The Associated Press it was “aware and looking into what happened.”
No evidence of a hospital flight
There was no credible reporting showing Trump was taken by helicopter to a hospital on Dec. 18 or 19, 2025.
Meanwhile, White House channels published material indicating normal activity around those dates, including official items posted to the White House website dated Dec. 18. The White House video library listed recordings from Dec. 18, including “President Trump Signs an Executive Order” and “President Trump Delivers an Address to the Nation,” both recorded at the White House and running more than half an hour each. In addition, news outlets reported Trump was expected to make an announcement at the White House on the afternoon of Dec. 19, which was inconsistent with the rumor he had been secretly hospitalized.
All in all, the “Stay tuned – we’ll be live again shortly” message on the White House’s website was a routine placeholder, and we found no credible evidence Trump was flown to a hospital on Dec 18 or 19, 2025.
