Mitt Romney

Did Barack Obama say that he wants to return to the White House in 2028 as president through "legal avenues" or as a "proxy candidate"? No, that's not true: Contrary to the posts citing his "exclusive interview on a major news network" on December 7, 2025, the former president did not talk to any TV stations on that day. He…

Does the fact that Mitt Romney's private investment income surpasses his U.S. Senate salary prove that he is "corrupt"? No, that's not true: The Utah senator, a Republican, discloses his legal sources of income via U.S. Senate financial disclosures and as a former venture capitalist, accumulated his vast wealth before he became a senator. The fact that his investments provide…

Did Sen. Mitt Romney threaten to leave the Republican Party and join the Democrats? No, that's not true: The Utah senator's spokesperson told Lead Stories there was "zero truth" to the claim. Romney filed paperwork in July 2023 that would allow him to seek re-election to the U.S. Senate as a Republican. The claim appeared in a post published on…

Were three high-profile Democrats, including President Joe Biden, arrested on or before May 10, 2023? No, that's not true: The claim came from a 2021 video that theorized about that happening in the future, but two years later, as of this writing, none of it materialized. The story appeared in a post published on Facebook on May 10, 2023. It…

Did Donald Trump issue a statement on his "Save America" letterhead that encouraged "all the Great MAGA Patriots" to boycott the midterm elections in November? No, that's not true: According to Trump's chief spokeswoman, that April 27, 2022, statement is fake. The fabricated statement appears to have originated from The Halfway Post, a Twitter account that describes itself as liberal…

Do President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Mitt Romney and climate envoy John Kerry all have sons on the board of Burisma Holdings? No, that's not true: None do. Biden's youngest son used to sit on the board of the Ukrainian energy company, but no longer. There is no publicly available evidence to support the allegation about the…

Did "The Simpsons" animated TV sitcom predict Donald Trump's 2016 victory 15 years before he even announced his candidacy? Did the show also foretell the full electoral map of the 2016 election results? No, that's not true: The cartoon images in this meme do not match the story or date attached to them. The cartoon image of Donald Trump was…

Abbie Richards, a climate science student in the Netherlands, was looking with bewilderment at the state of her home country of the United States. So many conspiracy theories echoing, particularly ahead of the election. Struggling to wrangle all of them for a paper, she made a chart naming some 100 conspiracies dominating the social media world to, she hoped, make…

Is Mitch McConnell the richest senator and is Kentucky, which he represents, the poorest state? No, that's not true: There are at least eight senators who have a higher net worth than Senate Majority Leader McConnell, and at least four states and a U.S. territory that have a lower median household income than Kentucky. The claim appeared in a meme…

Did Mitt Romney endorse Joe Biden for president of the United States? No, that's not true. The story was published by a liberal satire website that tries to mislead Trump supporters and Republicans into sharing made-up stories that are clearly marked as satire when you actually click them. Articles from the site are frequently copied by foreign-run fake news websites.…