Does a real photo show Donald Trump Jr. at a shooting bench with the scope of his rifle mounted backwards? No, that's not true: This image has been digitally edited. An earlier copy of the image appears in a 2024 article with the scope mounted properly. The altered image appears in a post (archived here) published on Bluesky by @mrsbettybowers…
Did Kristi Noem say "If Jesus wanted America to speak Spanish and have the Super Bowl half time show in a foreign language, he would not have written the Bible in English."? No, that's not true: Noem did not say this. This fake quote came from a meme shared by a satire page that included a small watermark with the…
Did President Donald Trump say "I made a mistake" about nominating Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve chair? No, that's not true: Trump was referring to Jerome Powell, whom he previously nominated as chair and has sought to remove. His reference to the mistake came as he was describing the process by which he had been persuaded to select Powell over…
Did U.S. President Donald Trump threaten a 250% tariff on Norwegian salmon because "Norway is about to win the most golds" at the Winter Olympics? No, that's not true: The viral image of his supposed Truth Social post is not real. Lead Stories searched his account and news reports, but found no confirmation that he wrote what some on social…
Does a viral image show a real post by President Trump in which he speaks about Jane Goodall, her family and various apes? No, that's not true: The fake image appeared after there was controversy over a post Trump did make in which Barack and Michelle Obama were shown as apes. However, the "Goodall" post did not appear on Trump's…
Did Donald Trump really post a video on Truth Social featuring the faces of Michelle and Barack Obama superimposed on the bodies of apes? Yes, that is true: Shortly before midnight on Feb. 5, 2026 Donald Trump posted a 1-minute, 2-second video from the PatriotNewsOutlet.com. The video promoted a debunked conspiracy claim about voting machines during the 2020 election. The…
Does a real photo show Melania Trump and Ghislaine Maxwell posing with three young women whose faces have been redacted? No, that's not true: This fake photo was made to look like a Polaroid photo from 1998. The high resolution fake image was featured as a clickbait thumbnail for a YouTube video, with black redactions as if it originated from…
Is a photo that shows Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein with young girls and boys authentic and part of the Department of Justice's publicly released Epstein files? No, that's not true: The image shows clear signs of being created by AI. The photo has not been released in the Department of Justice Epstein files as of the publication date of…
Does a viral image on social media prove that Justice Department files show Jeffrey Epstein once wrote that Donald Trump calls "black girls" "boogers"? No, that's not true: Multiple searches across the Department of Justice website did not show such an email. The viral screenshot is unlikely to be authentic because it contains a reference to a domain registered months…
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,…
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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