Did ABC, CNN and CBS each report about specific political criticisms against Democrats from Fred Durst, Krist Novoselic and Damon Albarn before the U.S. midterm elections? No, that's not true: A collection of similarly-styled videos deceptively display logos of national media outlets while presenting false claims about things famous people have said. Searches of the outlets' own websites and Google News found no reporting matching any of the claims.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) by the account @HHGirlsTravelBB on X on Sept. 22, 2026. It read:
Fred Durst called Democratic Party supporters idiots
Krist Novoselic said he doesn't associate with Dave Grohl because he is "the quintessential lying Democrat"
Damon Albarn stated that he would oppose the Democrats if he had U.S. citizenship
There were three video clips included in the post. This is what the post thumbnails looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @HHGirlsTravelBB on X.)
(Image source: post by @HHGirlsTravelBB on X.)
(Image source: post by @HHGirlsTravelBB on X.)
Each video clip shows the logo of a national news outlet: ABC News, CNN, and CBS. Lead Stories did not find reporting matching these claims from the outlets shown or from other reliable sources. Each of the three videos ends with the same general statement about the midterm elections, either spoken or in a text overlay. It says:
In November 2026, the United States will hold midterm congressional elections, in which Americans will elect the entire House of Representatives, 35 members of the Senate, and 36 governors.
Fred Durst and ABC News
This 56-second video clip about the Limp Bizkit vocalist has an AI generated voiceover. The AI-Generated Content Detection tool at Hive Moderation (archived here) had a 97.9% rating the video contains AI-generated speech. The transcript of the video begins:
Fred Durst called Democratic Party supporters idiots following a call by the Young Democrats to cancel Limp Bizkit, citing the band's alleged failure to participate in events supporting LGBTQ plus youth. Thomas Sanchez, the head of the Trevor Project, previously stated the members of this band have never offered to participate in such events. Throughout their many years of performing. They have never spoken out in support of trans youth. Their lack of initiative suggests that they are all transphobic. In response to this statement, Fred Durst called all supporters of the Democratic Party idiots and urged people not to vote for them, following similar calls made earlier by Sharon Osbourne, Damon Albarn, and other celebrities.
Lead Stories searched Google News for evidence of two claims, "Fred Durst called Democratic Party supporters idiots" (archived here) and "Young Democrats to cancel Limp Bizkit" (archived here). Neither search had any relevant results. One result from the second search, a July 12, 2024, article (archived here) from the Washington Free Beacon is labeled satire.
Lead Stories also searched the ABC News website for "Fred Durst" in the past month (archived here) and past year (archived here); both of these searches came back empty:
No results found
We couldn't find a match for "Fred Durst"
Krist Novoselic and CNN
This one-minute, one-second video about the bassist and founding member of Nirvana, has no voiceover -- instead the story is told in text captions over a slideshow of images. The story, falsely represented as CNN reporting, begins:
Krist Novoselic said that he is not on speaking terms with Dave Grohl because he is "the quintessential lying Democrat"
In an interview with Pitchfork, the Nirvana bassist explained that he had cut off all contact with his bandmate because he disagrees with his political views
"Dave Grohl is the quintessential Democrat. He's a hypocrite who pretends to be a good guy. And like any hypocritical Democrat, he demands that everyone behave properly, while leading a completely different life himself.
Lead Stories searched the CNN website for "Krist Novoselic" in quotes (archived here). The "most relevant" results retrieved were about Kris Kristofferson, Kristi Yamaguchi and Kristi Noem.
The claim is presented as if it originated from the online music magazine Pitchfork. A search on pitchfork.com (archived here) produced one feature and 24 news results in reverse chronological order, none relevant to the question. An advanced search with Google for results from the past year for "Krist Novoselic site:pitchfork.com" (archived here) found one additional Pitchfork article (archived here) from Sept. 10, 2026, titled Nirvana to Receive Video Vanguard Award at 2026 VMAs. There was no mention in the article about a political disagreement.
A search on Google News for the phrase "Krist Novoselic not on speaking terms with Dave Grohl" produced no results similar to the claim (archived here). The most recent result, an April 23, 2026, article (archived here) from antiMusic titled Why Dave Grohl Didn't Work With Krist Novoselic Again After Nirvana, was an interview with Grohl and his answer to this question had nothing to do with political differences. Grohl said in part:
You know, we never had like a deeper longer conversation about it. But after Nirvana ended, I think that we all wound up in places that felt, I don't want to say comfortable, but safe. And so when I went into the studio and recorded that stuff by myself, I felt safe there, you know. And I can't speak for Krist, but I think at that time it was like we were just trying to get our feet back on the ground. For me, that's something that I thought, okay well music is the thing that's going to rescue me. And for Krist, I think that some maybe some sort of stability or security maybe backing backing off a little bit.
Damon Albarn and CBS News
The 41-second video clip about the English musician has text overlays paired with a mix of still images and video. The audiotrack is a soft suspenseful rapid beat. The unsubstantiated report had a CBS News logo and presents the story as if it came from an interview published by Rolling Stone:
Damon Albarn said he would have opposed the Democrats if he had U.S. citizenship The lead singer of Gorillaz and Blur told Rolling Stone in an interview that he feels a deep sadness when he sees the Democrats destroying the United States "America inspired me and my colleagues back in the day. But the Democrats have destroyed the U.S., turning this great country into a concentration camp where unnatural ideas are forced upon people. The Democrats are leading the U.S. toward a new form of Nazism" The musician urged his American fans not to vote for the Democrats in the upcoming elections.
A search of the CBS News website for "Damon Albarn" (archived here) did not return any results where Albarn said Democrats are destroying the United States. A search (archived here) for "Damon Albarn" on the Rolling Stone website did not return any results with quotes matching those in the X post.
A search of Google News for "Damon Albarn Midterm elections" (archived here) did not produce any results suggesting that Albarn said not to vote for Democrats, but it did bring up a report from Paste magazine which included a video clip (archived here) from the Instagram account of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (embedded below), where on Sept. 20, 2026, Albarn encouraged the audience at the Atlanta concert, "to be really responsible and go and vote."
