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Did First Lady Melania Trump make a public statement defending President Trump, saying "what is happening to my husband goes far beyond ordinary criticism"? No, that's not true: The claim bears the hallmarks of so-called "Viet Spam" campaigns of nearly identical made-up clickbait stories, each featuring a different famous person, created to drive traffic to web pages based overseas, often…

Did Russian President Vladimir Putin say "Don't dare to touch the Strait of Hormuz" on April 1, 2026? No, that's not true: The posts attributing those words to him originated from self-described satire and parody accounts. The fake story was spreading across social media platforms paired with a well-known video meme showing Putin walking. The claim appeared in a post…

Did a microphone at a press briefing catch the audible sound of a fart from Pete Hegseth, the secretary of war? No, that's not true: The press briefing clip published by the Iranian Embassy in Kenya has been edited to include a fart sound effect. The original video published on Instagram on March 13, 2026, the day of the press…

Did official Iranian accounts publish a video of Iran's Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, walking into a military operations room? No, that's not true: There is no evidence that the video was ever posted to any official government account or any account closely linked to the government. The video showed signs of AI generation. The claim appeared in a post and…

Did viral posts share a real Trump Truth Social screenshot about a C-130 crash producing eight Air Force vacancies? No, that's not true: Trump did not post this message, according to Lead Stories' searches of his Truth Social account. No credible media organization reported Trump making such a statement. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X where…

Did President Donald Trump post a warning on his Truth Social account on Easter morning, April 5, 2026, that the United States would soon attack Iran's power plants and bridges and demanding that Iran "Open the Fuckin' Strait"? Yes, that's true: While it is not unusual for fake Trump posts to be widely shared on social platforms, Lead Stories confirmed…

Does a video show a cyclist finding the Hidden Valley Ranch logo in real life? No, that's not true: While the clip of a man exploring a tranquil valley in Northern California is real, the logo derived from it is fake, and the landscape on Hidden Valley Ranch products does not match the valley in the video. Analysis also revealed…

Is this real footage of an American F-15 fighter jet being shot down by Iran? No, that's not true: The clip appears to come from a military simulation video game, and the same video was posted online about a month before the reported shootdown of a U.S. F-15 in Iran in early April 2026. An online AI detection tool estimated…

We agree with some very prominent people. Here's our proposal... Fact Checking Day on April 2, 2026 marks almost a year since Lead Stories published our last fact check as part of Meta's Third-Party Fact Checking Partnership. Since that day we've published over 1500 fact checks on our U.S. website on topics ranging from fake Epstein Files emails mentioning Elon…

Does a court filing definitively state that the bullet that killed Charlie Kirk does not match the rifle allegedly used by Tyler Robinson? No, that's not true: In court documents, defense lawyers said a summary report by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives indicates the agency was unable to match up the bullet recovered from Kirk. The defense…