When I received an invitation last month to come to Macedonia to talk with the fact checkers and journalists at the Metamorphosis Foundation about Lead Stories' experience with our automatically generated short-form fact checking videos, I didn't hesitate for a moment. Ever since 2019 when I wrote about a network of Macedonian fake news websites operating out of the town…
Was Pete Hegseth's nameplate at the December 2, 2025, cabinet meeting misspell his title as "SSECRETARY OF WAR"? Yes, that's true: Photos and video recorded by several media agencies and on the White House website confirmed that an image showing that spelling is real. The photo appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on December 2, 2025. The…
Did Elon Musk acquire Donald Trump's Truth Social for $10 billion in November 2025? No, that's not true: A message purporting to be from Donald Trump's Truth Social account was fake. The person who posted a fake screenshot of the fake message wrote that they did so to entertain themselves. There are no news reports of Musk buying Truth Social…
Do viral posts about a confrontation between AOC and Donald Trump's son Barron, with the involvement of Louisiana Senator John Neely Kennedy, describe a real-life event? No, that's not true: Contrary to the claim, there is no video recording of an exchange that allegedly happened on the Senate floor. The posts appear to be part of foreign-operated networks that share…
Did Barron Trump announce a 2028 run for U.S. Senate at an event that "broke Washington in half"? No, that's not true: Barron Trump would still be too young to qualify for service in the U.S. Senate in 2028. A viral Facebook post contained verifiably false details about a viral hashtag and there being actual news reports about such an…
Did Donald Trump write a letter to Nancy Pelosi on December 20, 2019 which contained a hidden message, "FUck YoU CUNT," spelled in the first letter of every line? No, that's not true: A search of the Trump White House archives did not produce a match for the screenshot which was posted on social media. There is no official record…
Does a real photo show U.S. President Donald Trump walking past a U.S. flag that appears to touch the ground? Yes, that is an authentic photo: Its origin can be traced to a reputable news agency. A White House spokesperson did not deny the photo's authenticity, either, but stated that the image doesn't show the flag "fallen to the ground".…
Did Fox broadcast a report that President Donald Trump has signed an executive order making the "National Economic Security And Recovery Act" (NESARA) the official policy of the nation? No, that's not true: A search of the Fox website turned up no such report, nor does The White House report Trump made such a declaration. That means the video of…
Did White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt attempt to explain the presence of Donald Trump's last name in the newly released Epstein files by saying that it was "another person with the same name", not a reference to Donald Trump, the 45th and 47th president of the United States? No, that's not true: The rumor originated from a self-described satire…
Is a video of Donald Trump touching and patting Bill Clinton's crotch authentic? No, that's not true: The first frame of the six-second clip is a real image of Trump and Clinton at a golf tournament in 2000 that was released by the Clinton Library in 2016. The rest of the video was created by an artificial intelligence tool, which…
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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