Did Donald Trump post a profanity-laced "unhinged" rant on his Truth Social, claiming he "graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals," along with other false statements? No, that's not true: The message does not appear on Trump's Truth Social account. It is a widely circulated internet meme known as a "copypasta" that has been online beginning in 2010.…
Did President Donald Trump post a message on his Truth Social account saying "Tuesday I will be vaporizing an entire nation of ANIMALS - Persians Who have NO SENSE of history will feel my wrath"? No, that's not true: There is no evidence such a post was published on Trump's account. The description of the account that posted the fake…
Did a Texas televangelist send his congregation his Grindr account in an Easter morning e-card in April 2026? No, that's not true: The story originated in a post on X by a satirical account and was subsequently reshared on Facebook without the satire disclaimer. There are no reliable reports to support such an incident or claim. The claim appeared in…
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 real video show two crewmembers parachuting to the ground after ejecting from a damaged U.S. F-15 fighter jet over Iran? No, that's not true: A content detection tool determined with 99.9 percent confidence that the video was AI generated. While an F-15 was shot down over Iran on April 3, 2026, only one of the two crewmembers had…
Did The New York Times publish a headline saying "A North American Treaty Organization Without America?" Yes, that's true: The mistake appeared in the April 3, 2026, print edition of the paper. Instead of saying "North American Treaty Organization," it should have said "North Atlantic Treaty Organization." The claim appeared in a post (archived here) by the @sissenberg account on…
Does a viral image actually show a U.S. Army helicopter that crashed in Iran on April 3, 2026? No, that's not true: The picture was online more than a year earlier. It was published in Honduras in March 2025. The claim appeared in a post (archived here and here) published by the @TheLaikYobaz account on X on April 3, 2026.…
Does a viral image of world leaders showing their middle fingers as an act of apparent disagreement with U.S. President Donald Trump show a real 2026 TIME Magazine cover? No, that's not true: The magazine's website did not contain such a cover. The image displayed shows signs strongly pointing to generative AI. The claim appeared in a post (archived here)…
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…
Is Donald Trump being added to the sculptures of the four presidents at Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota as of April 1, 2026? No, that's not true: That was an April Fool's Day joke. The article that started the rumor was written under the pen name Olaf Priol -- an anagram of April Fool. The story appeared in…
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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