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Image allegedly shows young Mamdani with Epstein, Maxwell, Clinton, Gates and Bezos. Don’t be fooled

July 9, 2026

The fake photo originated from an X account that says it publishes “AI-powered … videos & memes.”

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Claim:

Images authentically showed U.S. President Donald Trump viewing a large printout about the demolition of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Rating:

Context

It’s unclear whether the Trump administration would follow through on any plans to demolish the Kennedy Center. Snopes reached out to the White House for comment and awaits a reply.

In September 2026, after the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced it would close its doors due to financial difficulties and the need for renovations, an image circulated online that social media users claimed (archived) showed U.S. President Donald Trump viewing a large, illustrated printout about the demolition of the Washington, D.C. landmark. 

For example, the Instagram page Occupy Democrats posted images of Trump and the printout, writing, “BREAKING: A sharp-eyed photographer unearths Trump’s plan to DESTROY the Kennedy Center – catching him staring at a placard that says ‘Kennedy Center Demolished’ through the window of his plane!”

The images and claims about what they showed also circulated on Facebook (archived), Threads (archived), X (archived), Bluesky (archived) and Reddit (archived). Snopes readers wrote in, asking about the authenticity of the images.

Several social media posts correctly credited images of Trump looking at the printout to the Agence France-Presse photographer Brendan Smialowski. One photo, published by Getty Images on Sept. 16, showed Trump viewing a printout with lettering at the top that read “dy Center DEMOLISH.” Another image showed the start of the printout read “Kennedy.” Getty Images and AFP are both reputable photo repositories and trusted sources. 

As such, we rate claims that Trump viewed a printout about the demolition of the Kennedy Center true.

We contacted the White House Press Office to ask what the printout showed and whether Trump planned to demolish the Kennedy Center and await a reply.

Photos circulated amid tensions surrounding Kennedy Center name

Getty Images wrote that Smialowski took the photos of Trump looking at the “Kennedy Center” printout through a plane window after the president landed at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, on Sept. 16. 

Earlier the same day, C-SPAN aired video footage of Trump telling reporters in North Carolina that his administration should be recognized for its work fixing and subsidizing the Kennedy Center, which he claimed had lost “hundreds of millions of dollars” before he stepped in to help.

The president added (time code 06:01): “I think that the Trump administration should certainly have recognition because frankly if we don’t do that it’s going to close, it’ll end up being ripped down.” He was likely referring to fundraising for the center’s renovation work.

The day before, on Sept. 15, a federal judge ordered that the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees, which Trump heads, could not “install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing.” Judge Christopher R. Cooper wrote the order as part of a lawsuit brought by U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat, who sued Trump in Dec. 2025 to stop the renaming of the Kennedy Center after Trump.

That same day, Trump announced on Truth Social that the Kennedy Center’s board had voted to close the building to carry out “Renovation and Reconstruction” work. However, he wrote, that work would not be carried out unless and until courts allowed “the Board’s approved name.” 

The board voted in December 2025 to rename the Kennedy Center to the “Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts” or “Trump Kennedy Center.” Cooper blocked this change in May 2026 and ordered the center to remove Trump’s name from public view. The center appeared to comply with this order in June 2026, erecting scaffolding to cover Trump’s name on the building facade.

Court ordered 30-day notice period for demolition work

It was unclear at the time of this writing whether the “Kennedy Center DEMOLISH” printout Trump viewed on Sept. 16 was related to his remarks about the center being “ripped down” without “recognition” for his administration, or to what degree it represented the administration’s plans for the center.

According to court documents filed in a separate lawsuit against the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees that sought to stop “demolition, new construction, major reconstruction, major renovation, or major aesthetic transformation” of the Kennedy Center without congressional approval, lawyers for the board said the Center’s position in August 2026 was that “the building will not be demolished and that no new structure will be constructed.”

Lawyers for the Kennedy Center’s Board of Trustees pledged to tell plaintiffs and the court in that case if the center’s position changed. 

Following the publication of Smialowski’s images, Cooper ordered defendants in the Beatty case, which included Trump and the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees, to give “more than 30 days notice” if the center changed its position that the building would not be demolished or have a new structure added.

Neither Trump nor the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees, who were defendants in both lawsuits, had given such notice of by the time of this writing.

For further reading, Snopes previously investigated whether a forklift repeatedly hit the Kennedy Center pillars on Sept. 16, 2026, and whether the Trump administration cut down the center’s weeping willows.

Sources

Claim:

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is considering a deal that would give a piece of Yosemite National Park to a private developer.

Rating:

Under U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, the National Park Service is working with a private developer on a land exchange deal that would give the company a strip of land in Yosemite National Park, according to Snopes’ review of federal records, court documents and statements from parties involved.

We began looking into the matter after seeing posts on social media sites that accused (archived) the administration of “quietly” working on the agreement, and numerous readers reaching out to us to investigate whether that was true. A Facebook page that advocates for protecting lands and monuments under the park service’s jurisdiction, Alt National Park Service, claimed: 

Some members of Congress and conservation groups condemned the alleged project, accusing leaders of the Interior Department of breaking their promise to protect national parks. For example, in an interview with The Guardian, a spokesperson for Save Our Parks described the land exchange deal as part of a broader “push to sell off public lands and privatize America’s national parks” by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.

The rumor about Yosemite stemmed from an August 2026 investigation by The Washington Sun, formerly NOTUS, which other reputable news outlets such as The Washington Post and The New York Times followed with their own reports. 

According to those articles, a Nevada-based real estate developer that currently owns property adjacent to Yosemite wants the land — a quarter-mile strip inside the park’s western boundary — to build a new road connecting its property to the national forests.

“If the deal goes through, the Trump administration would be breaking with 150 years of American precedent at the birthplace of the national park system,” the Sun wrote. “The federal government has historically strived to expand the crown-jewel national parks, not give up land within them.”

Below, we lay out what’s true about the claim and the context surrounding the project:

Our investigation

According to evidence obtained by Snopes, it’s true that, under Trump, the park service is working with that private developer, Kingsbarn Realty Capital, on an agreement that would give the company a part of Yosemite in exchange for an unidentified piece of land in California.

What’s less clear is Trump officials’ level of influence on the project. 

The Washington Sun based its reporting in part on interviews with anonymous sources who are “directly familiar with discussions” about the deal. At least one claimed leaders within Trump’s Interior Department were putting unusual pressure on the park service to make the land exchange happen. 

Due to those sources’ anonymity, Snopes was unable to track them down and corroborate the Sun’s reporting. We rely on primary evidence for our fact-checking, which means we consider all other news outlets’ reporting questionable until we can confirm (or debunk) it ourselves, with our own sources.

In an email to Snopes, a spokesperson for the park system said claims that those conversations were happening in “secret” or under pressure from the Trump administration were untrue. “There has been no political pressure to reach a predetermined outcome,” the spokesperson wrote.

The White House declined to comment on the matter and directed us to the Interior Department. We reached out to that department and didn’t receive a response, as of this writing.

The quarter-mile strip of land in question

Kingsbarn Realty Capital bought two parcels of land, each about 40 acres, next to Yosemite in 2024, property records and court filings show.

According to The Washington Post, the company is planning to build short-term rental accommodations for tourists on the land. Google Earth satellite images from May 2025, the most recent available, showed the site was undeveloped without any sign of construction. It’s unclear whether that’s changed.

Meanwhile, according to The Washington Sun, the park service has been working with Trump officials to grant the strip of land inside Yosemite, adjacent to Kingsbarn’s property, to the real estate firm since spring 2025. That outlet reported:

The private developers own an 83-acre plot of land just outside the western boundaries of Yosemite, about five miles from one of the park’s defining ancient sequoia groves. Jeff Pori, the CEO of Kingsbarn, wants to build a short road connecting the property to one of Yosemite’s central thoroughfares. The new road would give the land exceptionally rare private access to a park that is otherwise almost entirely buffered by national forests.

(General Land Office Records (Bureau of Land Management), National Park Service and Snopes Illustration.)

Jeff Pori, chief executive of Kingsbarn, told the Post its property can be accessed only by an 11-mile road through neighboring Stanislaus National Forest right now, and that could be a safety issue in the winter. 

Should the land exchange deal with the park service go through, the new road would connect Kingsbarn’s property to the park highway, he said. The Post reported:

Pori said in the interview that while the development has yet to be designed, “it would not be a private ‘compound for rich guys’ to live in, as some are trying to characterize it.”

As of this writing, it’s unclear where, precisely, the quarter-mile strip would fall within Yosemite.

Snopes attempted to talk to representatives of Kingsbarn ourselves, though we did not receive answers to requests.

The property’s history

Before Kingsbarn, developer Lewis Geyser owned the parcels adjacent to Yosemite (labeled NWNW and NENW on the map above). According to The New York Times, Geyser proposed building a resort called Hazel Green Ranch.

To confirm the property’s ownership history, we reviewed Mariposa County deed documents showing Hazel Green Ranch transferred the land to a Las Vegas limited liability corporation, Sanctuary at Yosemite, on Feb. 1, 2024. According to the documents, Sanctuary at Yosemite’s address is the same as Kingsbarn’s.

Court documents from 2007 show Geyser’s company attempted to acquire the land inside Yosemite through legal means after talks with the the park service and Interior Department fell through. Also seeking to build a road connecting the national park to the private property, he was unsuccessful.

That developer’s failed attempts should have ended the matter, members of the California Legislature wrote in a September 2026 letter addressed to Burgum. “The same underlying proposal has returned,” the letter read. “Not through the courts this time, but through a land exchange negotiated directly with officials in your Department.”

The developer’s strategy

Fast forward to 2026, and there is no indication that Kingsbarn has trie to secure the land through the legal system. Instead, it appears the company is working directly with federal officials on the proposed land swap. 

Lanny Davis, an attorney representing Kingsbarn, said in an August statement (archived):

Over the last six months, Kingsbarn Realty Capital and I have been working directly and cooperating with National Park Service staff at Yosemite National Park in California to provide safe access from the Hazel Green property to the park entrance – which is supportive of environmental values, since it will reduce air pollution from the longer, less safe route. […] This land exchange mechanism is expressly provided for under federal law and will not reduce the land area of the park.

We wrote to Davis seeking more information, including whether the company is hoping to build anything beyond a road on the site and whether that thoroughfare would be accessible to the general public. We have not received a response.

It’s true federal law allows for land exchanges. 

However, according to The Washington Post, the park service generally makes the deals only with congressional approval, “with possible limited exceptions for minor adjustments to park boundaries, so long as the ultimate goal is conservation.” 

For this proposed land swap, the park service would transfer the title of the federal land to Kingsbarn in exchange for non-federal property anywhere in California. 

The spokesperson for the park service told us:

Any land exchange or access proposal involving National Park Service lands would be subject to all applicable federal laws, regulations and Departmental policies, including required environmental review and public notification processes. No final decisions have been made.

If a proposal advances, the Department will follow established procedures to ensure appropriate coordination, transparency and public involvement consistent with federal law. Anonymous speculation does not change those facts. 

A 2026 budgeting proposal for the agency mentioned the project, describing it as possible under the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a program established by Congress in 1964 to conserve the country’s public lands. 

That budget document stated, “NPS does not have legal authority to grant an interest in land and therefore, has been working with the landowner on a land exchange.” It also said:

The Hazel Green Ranch is located outside Yosemite National Park and within the boundary of Stanislaus National Forest. In order to proceed with a planned commercial development, the landowner has requested an interest in land over federally owned property within the park boundary in order to connect their property with an NPS road called Big Oak Flat Road. The road, which is federally owned, provides access to the park and is a major route to Yosemite Valley.

Congressional opposition