Deep State

Was Alex Pretti fired over allegations of inappropriate conduct with patients several months before federal agents killed him on a Minneapolis street? No, that's not true: The viral fake news article that started this rumor listed the wrong hospital as his employer, misstated his age and used a recycled image of a different person who had been misidentified as Pretti…

Did the parents of Alex Pretti, the ICU nurse shot to death by ICE agents in Minneapolis, say their son quit his hospital job months earlier and showed "unusual behavior"? No, that's not true: A statement released by Pretti's parents referenced his work as an ICU nurse at a Veterans Administration hospital, but it did not say that he had…

Did your favorite sports star "shock fans" or "shake" the league by "publicly" or "flatly" refusing to wear an LGBT Rainbow Armband because it would turn the game "into a political circus"? No, that's not true: The claim was made about at least 95 football, soccer, basketball, baseball, and hockey players in posts published on dozens of fake Facebook fan…

Did Travis Kelce, Jelly Roll, Bruce Springsteen, Caitlin Clark and a 12 other celebrities say that President Trump was "a vicious old bastard draining America's soul after the Born-in-America Act"? No, that's not true: The claim that at least 17 different sports stars and entertainers made that identical statement was made up by a Vietnamese-based spam factory that uses artificial…

Did a blonde woman take a selfie showing a handcuffed Nicolás Maduro in the back seat of a car? No, that's not true: This is not a real photo. Google's Gemini detected a SynthID watermark embedded in the image indicating that all or part of it was created or edited with Google AI. The AI-generated image appeared in a post…

Is a photo showing President Donald Trump using a walker to assist him real? No, that's not true: The image has the SynthID watermark that indicates it was created by Google's AI tool, according to an analysis by Google's Gemini chatbot. The image may have been created for satirical reasons since it was posted soon after President Trump signed an…

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…

New visa directives wrongly conflate journalism with censorship The International Fact-Checking Network is deeply concerned by reports that the U.S. State Department has instructed consular officers to deny visas to individuals who have worked in fact-checking, content moderation, and trust and safety. Fact-checking is journalism. It is the straightforward work of comparing public claims against the best available evidence and…

Did "an entire unnamed mountain" collapse into itself near Casper, Wyoming at the end of 2025 and were emergency crews from several states mobilizing? No, that's not true: A viral post and image making that claim originated on a satirical Facebook page. Earlier there was a (much smaller) collapse in Wyoming's Teton mountains but that happened over 250 miles from…

Did the man charged with planting pipe bombs found near the Republican and Democratic headquarters in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, sue the Trump administration's Department of Homeland Security over illegal immigration? No, that's not true: Legal disputes referenced in a Daily Wire article making that claim confused suspect Brian Cole Jr. with his father Brian Cole Sr. It…