9/11

Did the Democratic governor of New Jersey have all the American flags taken down from highway overpasses? No, that's not true: Gov. Phil Murphy was against the flag ban, which was proposed by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority and the ban has subsequently been suspended. The claim appeared in a meme (archived here) published by Facebook on September 7, 2020.…

Does a photo show Kyle Rittenhouse's mother dressed in militia gear and carrying an AR-15 rifle at the Kenosha protest the same night her son allegedly killed two men and wounded a third? No, that's not true: The image used in a meme claiming Wendy Rittenhouse drover her son the 20 miles to Kenosha, Wisconsin, from his home in Antioch,…

Has former U.S. President George W. Bush said he supports the Democratic presidential ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris? No, that's not true: While Bush has said he would not support Donald Trump's reelection campaign, he has not endorsed Biden and Harris, as of September 5, 2020. The claim appeared in a meme in a post shared on August…

Does an upcoming book on President Donald Trump report he suffered a mini-stroke or other cerebral event when he unexpectedly went to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in November of 2019? No, that's not true: Posting on Sept. 1, 2020 in response to the claim, the book's author -- New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt -- wrote that he…

Does a meme promising "fun facts" about the USPS contain only true facts? No, it doesn't. Although the United States Postal Service employs more than 500,000 people, the agency is in debt, it costs taxpayers $100 million a year, it only became self-sustaining in 1970 and it is not the largest employer of veterans. The meme appeared in a post…

Steve Brusk is the Assignments Manager at Lead Stories, assigning stories to writers and coordinating fact checking research. He worked on the National Desk and in Washington for CNN for twenty years. He was part of the network coverage of five presidential campaigns, the White House, 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. He was an assignment editor in Cleveland, Houston and Columbus,…

Is singer Tina Turner dying from stomach cancer and rejection of a kidney? No, there are no reliable reports that she is deathly ill. Turner did struggle with intestinal cancer and she underwent a kidney transplant in the past decade, but there is no evidence she is currently suffering from those issues. The claim appeared in a Facebook post of…

Did government contractors play a role in carrying out a "coup against President Trump" as claimed in the "ShadowGate" video? No, that's not true: There's zero evidence to support the claim, a variation on the oft-debunked myth that Trump is fighting a deep state. A "whistleblower" exaggerated his role in developing a program that he falsely claimed was then used…

Did President Trump post a tweet suggesting "child lifes matter" should be painted on the streets of Hollywood? No, that's not true: The message was published on a fake Trump Twitter account, a fact missed by some who believed it was a sign that the president was signalling belief in the QAnon Pizzagate conspiracy theory. The bogus account unsername @realDonalTrump_,…

Were 409,152 indictments for "child pedophilia" and trafficking offenses "coming to the surface" in July, 2020? No, that's not true: This claim is unsupported by facts. Much of evidence presented by a website that promotes QAnon conspiracy theories involves non-criminal cases -- not indictments -- including some that are decades old. A database that purportedly lists the "non-sealed" indictments is…