Every time a new presidential administration takes office, the official White House website and other government websites are modified to reflect the incoming administration’s priorities.
For example, when Trump first took office on Jan. 20, 2017, sometime between 11:00 a.m. and 12:22 p.m. EST the White House website flipped from former President Barack Obama’s landing page to one reflecting Trump’s transition into office.
On Jan. 20, 2009, the White House websites flipped from George W. Bush’s administration to Obama’s the same day.
According to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, White House websites are archived and rebuilt when a new president takes office. The previous administration’s website gets frozen in time, so to speak, in order for the public to easily access the websites of former presidents. The old White House website’s main page and most subsections are still accessible, but not updated once a new president takes office.
VERIFY readers like Emilia asked if it’s true that with Trump’s second term starting, if the Spanish version of the White House website and a page about the U.S. Constitution is now missing from the White House website.
THE SOURCES
- Current White House website for Trump’s second term
- An archive of former President Joe Biden’s White House website
- An archive of President Donald Trump’s White House website from his first term
- An archive of former President Barack Obama’s White House website
- An archive of former President Bill Clinton’s White House website
- The Wayback Machine archives of various government pages
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
WHAT WE FOUND
It’s standard practice for the White House website to change whenever a new president takes office. During the transition from former President Joe Biden to Trump, the White House website has completely changed and some pages have been removed. That includes the Spanish-language pages and social media accounts.
The White House website transitioned from the Biden administration to Trump sometime between 10:30 and 11:58 a.m. on Jan. 20, according to archives of the homepage. At 11:58 a.m., the White House landing page featured a montage video of Trump returning to the White House.
Within hours of Trump taking office, visitors to the Spanish version of WhiteHouse.gov were met with a 404 error indicating the page had been taken down.
According to The Wayback Machine, which captures archived snapshots of webpages, the Spanish version of the White House site was still accessible as of 12:55 p.m. EST on Jan. 20. By 11:55 a.m. the next day, it was no longer available.
The White House’s Spanish language accounts on Facebook, Instagram and X also have been deleted.
Spanish versions of the White House website were available during the administrations of George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, archives of each respective White House website shows. Bill Clinton did not have a Spanish version when his White House site went live in 1994.
During Trump’s first term, the Spanish language site went offline within hours of Trump taking office in January 2017. Then-Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that the administration had “IT folks working overtime” to roll out a new site, according to a 2017 article from the Associated Press. But the page was never brought online during Trump’s first term, archives show.
On Jan. 21, 2025, White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Harrison Fields told reporters that the administration is “committed to bringing back online the Spanish translation section of the website.”
“It’s day two. We are in the process of developing, editing and tweaking the White House website. As part of this ongoing work, some of the archived content on the website went dormant. We are committed to reloading that content in a short timeline,” Fields said.
Several VERIFY readers also asked us if a page dedicated to the U.S. Constitution was also taken down, as online posts claimed. As of Jan. 24, VERIFY was able to confirm that there was no link to the U.S. Constitution on the new website.
During Trump’s first term, a page about the Constitution appeared on his White House website, and was nearly identical to the one later published on Biden’s White House site.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.