Fact Check

Did USAID place a real ad reading "Help Eliminate Elon" on a street in Washington, D.C., in February 2025? No, that's not true: Capital Bikeshare, the owner of the bike stand ad box, stopped selling ads in April 2024, according to the person who was last in charge of selling the ads. It would be an unauthorized fake ad, the…

Did a January 6 "insurrectionist" who had been pardoned by President Donald Trump accidentally burn down his own house during the Super Bowl after he lit a pile of his teen daughter's Taylor Swift shirts on fire? No, that's not true: This is a made-up story published by an account that describes itself as "Dada news. Halfway true comedy and…

Did Elon Musk pay for an ad that aired during the Super Bowl that claimed the U.S. Agency for International Development spent $2 million on German llama racing and other nonsensical spending? No, that's not true: No ads aired during the Super Bowl from Elon Musk about outlandish things the agency was supposedly spending millions of dollars on, including llama…

Did Malia Obama say she "deserved every penny of the $2.3 million she got from USAID" and was this payment reported by a news website or public official? No, that's not true: The quote about the USAID payment originated on a satirical Facebook page with a clear disclaimer. The page owner is known for tricking conservatives into liking and sharing…

Did the Canadian government threaten a "100 percent tariff on Tesla" in February 2025? No, that's not true: While the federal government in Ottawa was considering its options, there was no announcement that it would target the electric car maker. Instead, proposals to impose a 100 percent tax on Teslas came from individual Canadian politicians, not the government itself. The…

Did President Donald Trump sign an executive order giving public housing residents a two-year deadline to move? No, that's not true: There is no such executive order posted on the White House website as of February 12, 2025. A search of Trump official remarks in 2025 also did not locate any mention of public housing or a deadline order. The…

Did Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, say, "Jesus Christ didn't have electricity either and he did just fine" while explaining President Donald Trump's tariff policies? No, that's not true: None of Leavitt's press briefings before the purported quote appeared online included that remark. There is evidence that the supposed quote comes from a meme. The claim appeared in…

Did a video on TikTok show an authentic CNN report on Yale University professors going on strike over student use of AI in classrooms? No, that's not true: There was no evidence at the time of writing on CNN.com or any other reputable media outlet's website that a protest was happening or had happened at Yale. Neither Yale's website nor…

Did Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spend 14.2 million euros ($14.7 million) to buy the legendary "Eagle's Nest" previously owned by Adolf Hitler? No, that's not true: A spokesperson for the Kehlsteinhaus, as the Eagle's Nest is known, told Lead Stories the claim was not true and that it had not been sold as of publication date. The German state of…

Is a grayscale video of various celebrities wearing a t-shirt featuring a Star of David on a hand giving the finger to Kanye West a real ad? No, that's not true: The AI generated video, set to the tune of Jewish folk song "Hava Nagila", appears to show Scarlett Johansson, Jerry Seinfeld, Steven Spielberg, Mark Zuckerberg, Sacha Baron Cohen, David…

Did a study published in January 2025 definitively establish a link between Ozempic and blindness, as was implied in a post on X? No, that's not true: The study was a small observational analysis of just nine patients that did not establish that the weight-loss drug caused blindness but instead found an association between the two. In other words, it…

Did Elon Musk spend $40 million on Super Bowl ads that listed all the corruption the Department of Government Efficiency has found so far? No, that's not true: There was no credible evidence supporting the assertion that Musk bought five 30-second ads for the February 9, 2025, Super Bowl about the "corruptions DOGE has found so far." No ads aired…

Did an executive order signed by President Donald Trump reverse "the plastic straw ban"? No, that's not true: No such national "ban" was enacted by Congress. Trump's order counters policies of former President Joe Biden aimed at gradually phasing out single-use plastic items in the future, which affected only the operations of federal agencies. While some localities do have restrictions…

Does a video being spread on social media show a real sinkhole that opened up in Paris? No, that's not true: The video originated on the Instagram account of an "AI video expert" and several details in the video reveal it is not real. A detection tool also said the video was AI generated. The video originally appeared in an…

Does a video show President Donald Trump and Melania Trump walking out onto the field of Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans on February 9, 2025? No, that's not true: Melania Trump was not at the 2025 Super Bowl. The video showing the two walking onto the field dates back to the 2020 College Football National Championship, which was held…

Is a picture of a goat statue covered in fake money with President Donald Trump's face on it being displayed at Mar-a-Lago real? Yes it appears so: Video of the statue appeared on the Instagram account of Project G.O.A.T., which calls itself an "art-based awareness and support campaign in the fight against human trafficking and sexual exploitation of children." Details…

Did Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum address President Donald Trump in a speech about "7 billion consumers ready to replace" their American products and vacations with non-American ones? No, that's not true: Lead Stories could not find any evidence that Sheinbaum ever said that to Trump, let alone publicly. Neither the website of the Mexican government nor Google News, among other…

Did the Federal Emergency Management Agency fraudulently send $59 million to luxury hotels in New York City to "house illegal migrants"? It's complicated: A New York City Hall spokesperson told Lead Stories that New York "never paid luxury-hotel rates" and that about a third of the $59 million -- around $19 million -- covered "direct hotel costs." A Department of…

Does a video on TikTok authentically show a patient denied health care by a black female doctor because the man is wearing a MAGA hat? No, that's not true: The video appears to be a mirrored version of a video that originally appeared on a TikTok channel along with other skits. In a second version of the video the "doctor"…

Is a picture of a sign that said "Due to Dishonesty self-checkout is CLOSED. Sorry to all the white people" real? No, that's not true: The original picture of a sign taken at a Dollar General store said "Sorry to all the honest people." Edited versions of the image circulating on social media swapped out the word "honest" for "white."…