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Did the NFL admit to canceling Elon's DOGE Super Bowl ads as several viral social media posts say? No, that's not true: This claim originated on a satirical Facebook page with a clear disclaimer. The page owner is known for tricking conservatives into liking and sharing made-up content. The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) published on February…

Did a January 6 "insurrectionist" who had been pardoned by President Donald Trump accidentally burn down his own house during the Super Bowl after he lit a pile of his teen daughter's Taylor Swift shirts on fire? No, that's not true: This is a made-up story published by an account that describes itself as "Dada news. Halfway true comedy and…

Did Elon Musk pay for an ad that aired during the Super Bowl that claimed the U.S. Agency for International Development spent $2 million on German llama racing and other nonsensical spending? No, that's not true: No ads aired during the Super Bowl from Elon Musk about outlandish things the agency was supposedly spending millions of dollars on, including llama…

Did Elon Musk spend $40 million on Super Bowl ads that listed all the corruption the Department of Government Efficiency has found so far? No, that's not true: There was no credible evidence supporting the assertion that Musk bought five 30-second ads for the February 9, 2025, Super Bowl about the "corruptions DOGE has found so far." No ads aired…

Did the Federal Emergency Management Agency fraudulently send $59 million to luxury hotels in New York City to "house illegal migrants"? It's complicated: A New York City Hall spokesperson told Lead Stories that New York "never paid luxury-hotel rates" and that about a third of the $59 million -- around $19 million -- covered "direct hotel costs." A Department of…

Does a video on TikTok authentically show a patient denied health care by a black female doctor because the man is wearing a MAGA hat? No, that's not true: The video appears to be a mirrored version of a video that originally appeared on a TikTok channel along with other skits. In a second version of the video the "doctor"…

Did Katherine Long, the reporter who broke a news story about the resignation of a DOGE employee work for USAID when the story was published in February 2025? No, that's not true: The reporter in question was previously employed by an organization that worked with USAID. At the time of this publication, Long was writing for the Wall Street Journal.…

Is there evidence the Coca-Cola Company called Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on their own workers in Texas and did several of them get deported as a result? No, that's not true: Online posts and videos making this claim lack details about the concrete place and time this supposedly happened and they offer up differing versions of events. A…

Did Elon Musk say that the U.S. Agency for International Development is "one of the biggest globalist terror organizations in history"? No, that's not true: There is no evidence that he publicly said that. However, Musk did call the organization "criminal." The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on February 4, 2025. It read: Elon Musk has…

Did E! News report USAID paid celebrities like Ben Stiller, Angelina Jolie, Sean Penn, Orlando Bloom or Jean-Claude Van Damme millions of dollars to visit President Zelenskyy in Ukraine? No, that's not true: E! News told Lead Stories the video is "not authentic" and did not originate with them. Stiller denied he received any USAID money, posting on X that…