Does a White House chart depicting U.S. steel production correctly show the rate of growth from 2024 to 2025? No, that's not true: The bar representing 2025 is twice the size of the 2024 bar, which visually suggests a 100% increase. That's the result of what statisticians call a "truncated axis" that tends to exaggerate rates of change in data.…
Did Karoline Leavitt say the Melania Trump movie sold more tickets than Star Wars? No, that's not true: The creator of the post stated that they made it up as satire. The White House press secretary did not say the movie about President Donald Trump's wife sold more tickets than Star Wars. The claim appeared as a February 1, 2026,…
Did U.S. President Donald Trump write on Truth Social that the documentary about his wife, Melania, will become mandatory in history classes, while calling her "Melanie"? No, that's not true: No such post could be found on his account. Lead Stories searched an archive of Trump's posts, which did not produce any evidence that the viral image showed a real…
Did U.S. President Donald Trump call the 'mother of all deals' trade agreement between India and the EU. a 'high school science project' on Truth Social? No, that's not true: A viral image with those words did not show an actual social media post by President Trump. It had a satire disclaimer near the bottom and was initially published by…
Does a high resolution image of the scuffle between immigration officers and Alex Pretti provide a more clear picture of what happened just before Pretti was shot? No, that's not true: This AI-enhanced image was created from an extremely blurry still taken from a video. AI-hallucinated flaws appear as crisp visual details where the original image was indistinct. The resulting…
Did either Karoline Leavitt, Sunny Hostin, Whoopi Goldberg, or Joy Behar say that Paul McCartney, Phil Collins, Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton, or a dozen other major artists is "just a musician"? No, that's not true: The claim was made about at least 16 different entertainers in posts published on dozens of fake Facebook fan pages aimed at American and European…
Did White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt say that "Trump mistook Greenland for Iceland" because "they share the same border"? No, that's not true: The internet rumor attributing those words to her originated from a satire account. Lead Stories found no credible sources citing the quote in question as Leavitt's actual words. The claim originated from a post (archived here)…
Was Nekima Levy Armstrong visibly crying in anguish in a Department of Homeland Security photo of her arrest by the FBI for her role in a protest at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota? No, that's not true: The photo of Armstrong's arrest posted by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem showed Armstrong's face as composed and expressionless. About one half hour…
Did President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan quietly drive themselves to a Virginia nursing home to serve breakfast to elderly residents on Christmas Day 1983? No, that's not true: This is a completely made-up story that is contradicted by historical records, including President Reagan's personal diary entry for that date. It was published by a Pakistani-based spam factory…
Did an actual news outlet report that an oil executive said Donald Trump "smelled like rotten roast beef" and audibly farted multiple times during a White House meeting with oil industry leaders? No, that's not true: The viral message making those claims originated on a satirical X.com account. There were no actual news reports that any participant in the Jan.…
Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, misleading, deceptive or inaccurate stories, videos or images going viral on the internet.
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