&Quot;The View&Quot;

Does a video authentically show a wooden cross being installed in the Oval Office? No, that's not true: A viral video captioned "Trump becomes 1st sitting U.S. President to install a cross in the Oval Office" showed some traces of being generated using AI according to detection tools. The video also contains artifacts like a worker blending through a wooden…

Did Carrie Underwood win a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit against "The View" or did she even sue them? No, that's not true: The story alleging there was a lawsuit involving comments on "The View" about Underwood's performance at President Trump's inauguration was put out by a number of clickbait channels on YouTube, but it was not backed up by any sources…

Was TV host Joy Behar arrested at the airport trying to flee the country after a $50M lawsuit involving comments about White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt? No, that's not true: The story narrated in a viral video was written by AI according to online detection tools, and there have been no actual news reports about any such lawsuit. An…

Did Bill Gates say that "defunding USAID will bring about another mystery illness across the world. Millions will die" during a TV appearance in February 2025? No, that's not true: Gates did not say that in the clip posted on X with that assertion. Lead Stories watched the full segment of Gates' appearance and did not hear Gates say it.…

Did Melania Trump win a $900 million defamation lawsuit against the TV show "The View"? No, that's not true: A spokesperson for "The View" told Lead Stories the story was false. No news websites indexed by Google News reported anything about such a lawsuit and there was no trace of it in court dockets in New York and Palm Beach.…

Did President Donald Trump's son Eric Trump post a message on X about the "American Golden Age" and threaten "the gloves are off" to those who "defy" it? No, that's not true: Social media posts that claimed Eric Trump deleted the post "within 20 mins" contained a fake screenshot that had a telltale lower case "k" in the view count.…

Did the set for ABC's talk show "The View" burn down amid the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires? No, that's not true: A spokesperson for the show told Lead Stories that the program has always been based in New York City. The website where the rumor appeared describes itself as specializing in "Satire and Parody." The image in the social…

Was the "Hollywood" sign a casualty of the fires burning in Los Angeles County as of January 9, 2025? No, that's not true: When this fact check was written, the sign was "safe and secure," according to the organization that preserves the sign. Media supposedly showing the sign being on fire were likely generated through artificial intelligence or by simple…

Did Elon Musk start a public campaign in early January 2025 to cancel "The View"? No, that's not true: Lead Stories found no confirmation that Musk posted what was attributed to him. No media organizations indexed by Google News reported on what was described as a public campaign. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Threads on January…

Does a video captured by a New Jersey resident show a drone spraying something in the sky? No, that's not true: The video showed a commercial Boeing 777 jetliner gradually descending as it nears the end of a transatlantic flight from London to Baltimore. Lead Stories cross-referenced the timestamp and location tag from the original video with flight and weather…