&Quot;Donald Trump&Quot;

Did an actual news outlet report that an oil executive said Donald Trump "smelled like rotten roast beef" and audibly farted multiple times during a White House meeting with oil industry leaders? No, that's not true: The viral message making those claims originated on a satirical X.com account. There were no actual news reports that any participant in the Jan.…

Does this viral video clip show Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis saying Renee Good had the right to drive away from ICE officers just before one of them shot and killed her on a Minneapolis street? No, that's not true: The clip is real, but was lifted from a June, 2025 appearance on "The Rubin Report" podcast, six months before Good…

Does a viral screenshot of a headline claiming Michael Byrd "pocketed" $190 million in HHS funds for an "unaccredited" daycare in Maryland show the current state of the article? No, that's not true: The Gateway Pundit website made several changes to the headline and the article over time, now pointing out $190 million is the total of all Federal child…

Did Johnny Depp, Eminem, Cher, Paul McCartney or any other celebrity tell Donald Trump "You're tearing families apart ... Shame on you" at a live town hall meeting on immigration? No, that's not true: Nearly identical stories mentioning those and more than 40 other celebrities were published by a network of foreign websites and Facebook pages. There were no news…

Does a viral image show an "official photo" of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro after he was captured by the U.S.? No, that's not true: Lead Stories didn't find any evidence that the picture originated from government websites or elected officials. The image showed two unusual rows of windows in the background, a pattern that did not appear in photographs of any…

False claims about the Charlie Kirk assassination, the Jeffrey Epstein files, and purported verbal gaffes by President Trump topped the list of most-read Lead Stories fact checks in 2025. Here are our most read fact checks of the past year, reflecting our reader's interest in finding out the truth about various viral stories. If you see something suspicious in 2026,…

Does a viral image show Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro captured? No, that's not true: An authentic photo was digitally altered to swap Maduro's head onto the body of a captive. The image originally showed Ukrainian-born pro-Russian businessman and politician Victor Medvedchuk. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on January 3, 2026. It read: 😁The White House…

Does a medical study chart show that drug overdose deaths in the United States sharply declined in 2025 under President Trump? No, that's not true: The chart is based on a medical study published in June 2025 that looked at drug death statistics in the decade ending in October 2024, which was three months before Trump returned to the presidency.…

Are windmills -- also known as wind turbines -- killing all of the bald eagles in the United States, as President Donald Trump claimed in a Truth Social post? No, that's not true: Studies estimate the number of eagles killed by wind turbines in the contiguous 48 U.S. states was in the hundreds in 2024, including both bald and golden…

Is an archived page of a Melania Trump profile on "A Foreign Affair" mail-order bride website from 1996 real? No, that's not true: The purported page was never archived on the Wayback Machine servers, Internet Archive director Mark Graham told Lead Stories. "What you see is a doctored image," he said. An analysis done with help from the Wayback Machine's…