Does a viral video show NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte excitedly saying "I just got viral! Yaaay! Because my good friend Donald J. Trump, he re-posted, he re-tweeted a message from me ... " ? No, that's not true: The man in the video is Dutch comedian Remko Vrijdag. Vrijdag's Instagram account shows him playing numerous roles including, from time…
Does a video show a real scuffle in front of a Grand Central Market between a Cherokee woman and an ICE Agent? No, that's not true: This video is AI-generated and was recaptioned for additional ragebaiting effect. It is one of a series of AI-generated videos made with the same, or nearly identical prompts that show a similar clash in…
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 Stephen Colbert "reveal" Donald Trump's "1970 Wharton IQ test"? No, that's not true: This claim and its variations originated from accounts that warned their audiences that they do not post factually accurate content. The rumor spread in variations that contradicted each other on the name of the TV host, school, test type and even the name of the person…
Did Donald Trump tell Norway's Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, that he wants complete and total control of Greenland because he was not granted the Nobel Peace Prize? Yes, that's true: Some questioned if the text message from Trump to Norway's Prime Minister published on X by PBS correspondent Nick Schifrin was real. Norway's Prime Minister published a statement on…
Did Greenland's parliament introduce legislation to ban Donald Trump and all his descendants for 100 generations? No, that's not true: The story originated on a social media account that describes itself as "Dadaist graffiti news", comedy and satire. No real news outlet reported such a ban, which would have been international news while Trump was publicly saying he would annex,…
Did an actual news outlet report that an oil executive said Donald Trump "smelled like rotten roast beef" and audibly farted multiple times during a White House meeting with oil industry leaders? No, that's not true: The viral message making those claims originated on a satirical X.com account. There were no actual news reports that any participant in the Jan.…
Does this viral video clip show Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis saying Renee Good had the right to drive away from ICE officers just before one of them shot and killed her on a Minneapolis street? No, that's not true: The clip is real, but was lifted from a June, 2025 appearance on "The Rubin Report" podcast, six months before Good…
Does a viral screenshot of a headline claiming Michael Byrd "pocketed" $190 million in HHS funds for an "unaccredited" daycare in Maryland show the current state of the article? No, that's not true: The Gateway Pundit website made several changes to the headline and the article over time, now pointing out $190 million is the total of all Federal child…
Did Johnny Depp, Eminem, Cher, Paul McCartney or any other celebrity tell Donald Trump "You're tearing families apart ... Shame on you" at a live town hall meeting on immigration? No, that's not true: Nearly identical stories mentioning those and more than 40 other celebrities were published by a network of foreign websites and Facebook pages. There were no news…
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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