Fact Check

Did President Donald Trump order background checks on Democrats to be made public, showing cases of assault, domestic violence and insider trading? No, that's not true: The post spreading that Trump rumor and the false list of cases came from a Facebook page with a satire disclaimer and a warning that all the contents of the page are fabricated. The…

Is Roland Beainy, the co-owner of Trump Burger restaurants in Texas, being deported? Here is what we know: A spokesperson for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement department told Lead Stories that ICE officers arrested Beainy on May 16, 2025, and he was placed into immigration proceedings. He was released from custody on bond by an immigration judge while the…

Did three former U.S. presidents -- Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Bill Clinton -- reject Secret Service detail assigned under the Trump administration for being "DEI hires"? No, that's not true: The rumor was first published on a self-described satire website. No professional journalistic organization reported on any such claim. The rumor originated from an article (archived here) published on…

Did a California aquarium collapse, killing 50 people, as was claimed in a viral Instagram reel? No, that's not true: A disaster of that magnitude and novelty would have been a worldwide news story and there is no record of such an event in news publications in or out of California. The Instagram account that posted the video consists of…

Did Barack and Michelle Obama sell their Martha's Vineyard estate to Les Wexner, a money management client of Jeffrey Epstein? No, that's not true. The home that Wexner purchased on Martha's Vineyard in July 2025 had been rented for Obama summer vacations from 2009 to 2011, while Obama was president. Though they later bought an estate on Martha's Vineyard, that…

Did sections of the U.S. Constitution concerning habeas corpus and the powers of Congress disappear from the U.S. Congress website before August 6, 2025? Yes, that's true: Archived versions of the pages recorded the changes that omitted sections 9 and 10 from Article 1. The Library of Congress, which manages the Congressional website, acknowledged the deletions and said it was…

Did a viral clip show a real sheriff's deputy asking a purple-haired woman "Does the carpet match the curtains?" No, that's not true: The man in the video was a YouTuber who hires paid actors to produce law-enforcement-themed videos. An organization representing real law enforcement officers has declared the YouTube channel fake. The claim originated from a video (archived here)…

Did President Donald Trump redefine marriage by decreeing that couples who date for over five years are legally married? No, that's NOT true. There have been no announcements from Trump nor statements from the White House press secretary nor any of their spokespersons regarding new laws aimed at redefining marriage by including within its legal framework unmarried couples who have…

Was Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer arrested by "U.S. Navy JAG" on "treason charges" related to the weak July 2025 job report published by the agency? No, that's not true: As of this writing, McEntarfer was fired by the Trump administration, but no credible source has published any reports about the purported arrest. The rumor came from a…

Does authentic video show President Trump dancing on the White House roof on August 5, 2025? No, that's not true: A review of the actual C-Span video available online shows that the fake video, which includes a C-Span logo, does not match the authentic footage. There is no dancing on the C-Span video. President Trump paused to answer questions shouted…

Does a video show a massive metallic UFO orb over a volcano in Mexico? No, that's not true: The round object in the video is a telescope on the top of the dormant Sierra Negra volcano. The telescope's concave dish-shaped reflector is 50 meters wide, the lighting at the time the video was filmed made an optical illusion of a…

Did a viral image show a real CNN report about tech billionaire Elon Musk being hospitalized on August 4, 2025? No, that's not true: Searches across Google and CNN produced zero confirmation that the network ever published such an article on its website. The account that spread the image on social media identified itself as a troll account. The claim…

Does a viral video authentically capture a teen girl punching holes in the tailgate of her father's pickup truck because he took away her phone? No, that's not true: The clip of the young woman is a re-titled excerpt of a video that was posted four days earlier as part of a TikTok user's campaign to build audience. It's one…

Do Canadian researchers propose to mass-vaccinate people with crop duster-style spraying of the populace, as a social media post implies? No, that's not true: The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) have paid researchers to develop a needle-free inhaler to inoculate people one at a time against the virus that causes COVID-19. The post that pushes the crop duster idea…

Did a viral TikTok video show the actor Sydney Sweeney responding to backlash over her role in a controversial American Eagle ad campaign? No, that's not true: Sweeney posted the video in question more than four years earlier. At the time, she was responding to trending Twitter posts critical of her appearance. The American Eagle campaign was not launched until…

Did a widely-shared video show authentic footage of a news report describing missing couple Mark and Jennifer Patterson being rescued after having been lost at sea for 25 years? No, that's not true: The clip in question was the product of AI. The account that posted the video is self-described AI and included the words "ai satire news" in the…

Does the scientific community as a whole share the notion that a newly discovered interstellar object 3I/ATLAS is an alien spacecraft heading to Earth for a "surprise attack" in November 2025? No, that's not true: The NASA website says that it's a comet and that it doesn't pose any risk to Earth. Three astronomers told Lead Stories that, as of…

Did a widely-shared doorbell camera video show a little boy and his dad caught "ding-dong ditching"? No, that's not true: The people in the video were simply acting out a scripted scenario. The page that posted the sketch routinely publishes similar scripted "doorbell comedy", and is affiliated with a company that provides marketing and logistical support to digital "content creators".…

Has President Trump's fragrance 45-47 been recalled from retailers because it is extremely flammable? No, that's not true: The fragrance is only available for order online from one website and it is not sold in retail stores. There is no evidence of a recall of the product on the Consumer Product Safety Commission recall database or in media reporting. The…

Did former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warn President Donald Trump that he should not think that "the Mossad alone has a video archive of his past depravities"? No, that's not true: The quote was attributed to "Russia media" by a website that claims to be in Israel, but appears to be managed in Ukraine. Lead Stories could find no evidence…