The U.S. Constitution Delivers a 404 Now

Donald Trump took office as the 47th president of the United States on Monday, quickly issuing clearly illegal executive orders and making changes to social media accounts and websites controlled by the office of the president. Arguably one of the most egregious changes in the president’s web footprint involves the US Constitution. Anyone who googles the Constitution and follows the link to the White House website can currently see one 404 error.

Prior to January 20, 2025, the White House website featured a page that described the history of the Constitution and how it was ratified. The site, as it appeared during Joe Biden’s presidency, is available at the Internet Archive Wayback Machine And an About the White House page features four pages that visitors can navigate, including President, First Family, Grounds, and Our Government.

clicking our government Brings visitors to a page explaining the US system, including the judicial, executive, and legislative branches “whose powers are vested in the US Constitution.” That reference to the US Constitution included a hyperlink that brought people to a page that now returned a 404 error. The page’s disappearance has gone viral on Instagram, thanks to generous influencers Mercedes ChandlerAnd it should be noted that the text on all these pages was nonpartisan and anything you might encounter in a middle school textbook about government.

“Can someone from the Maga movement please enlighten me as to how the party claiming to care about the constitution removed it from the website?” Chandler Dr. “Is it because you don’t want what’s in it?”

Chandler went on to speculate that this may be tied to the fact that Trump issued an executive order on Monday to no longer recognize the concept of birthright citizenship in the United States, which has been guaranteed by the 14th Amendment since its ratification in the 19th century. After the Civil War. From the Attorney General 18 states sued the federal government on Tuesday over the executive order, citing clear violations of the Constitution.

Obviously, any major changes to a website can break all kinds of links. Maybe the Trump White House has information about the Constitution somewhere else? If it is, we can’t find it.

Scrolling down to the bottom of whitehouse.gov’s main page is a section titled “About the White House.” There are three main buttons to click on, including The White House, Camp David and Air Force One. But clicking on any of these pages doesn’t provide any information about the US Constitution. In fact, we couldn’t find a single mention of the word “Constitution” anywhere on the White House website outside of news releases, which is odd.

The Trump administration on Monday made other changes to websites controlled by the federal government, including deleting the website reproductiverights.gov. The site was launched in 2022 by the US Department of Health and Human Services under President Biden to provide Americans with information about birth control and abortion after the US Supreme Court struck down abortion rights at the federal level in a landmark case called Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. .

The reproductive rights website told Americans that employers are required to cover access to health care services like birth control under the Affordable Care Act, which is currently being challenged in court. The reproductiverights.gov site is also archived Wayback Machine.

Other social media accounts controlled by the White House also made changes by midday Monday, including X, Facebook and even lesser-known sites. Flickr. And while few Americans are checking Flickr these days (and Trump’s people haven’t posted any new photos there yet) lesser-known sites can actually be an interesting place where news accidentally breaks. For example, we wouldn’t have this photo of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shaking Donald Trump’s hand. Fall of 2019If only the White House photographer hadn’t published it via Flickr.

Stay safe out there, folks. It’s going to get Much, much worse Before it gets any better for Americans.