Category: Fact Checking

Rumors circulated online in late January and early February 2026 that U.S. President Donald Trump ended an Oval Office news conference early after soiling himself. 

Users on social media networks such as X (archived), Bluesky (archived) and Facebook shared the rumor, with some claiming video of the purported incident offered evidence that the president “s*** his pants” and then had reporters ushered out of the room.

Reporters rushed out of the room because Trump shit his pants. lol

Lady in green tasted it.

🤢 pic.twitter.com/2EJc1cXe1f

— Rebekah Jones (@GeoRebekah) January 30, 2026

In a video posted to YouTube by Forbes from the Jan. 29, 2026, news conference during which Trump signed an executive order aimed at addiction recovery efforts, the president appears to abruptly end the discussion and signal for reporters to be removed from the room.

Photographs from the event are available to view on the credible image repository Getty Images. 

While the video was authentic and showed no signs of digital manipulation or content generated by artificial intelligence, there was no evidence to support the claim that Trump pooped himself during the meeting. There was no way for Snopes to independently verify the rumor, so we have left this claim unrated.  

By email, White House spokesman Steven Cheung said the rumor was “not true.”

The rumor was the latest in a series of speculation about Trump’s alleged bodily functions, including rumors that he soiled himself at the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony in December 2025. Such rumors are typically used by critics as a way to point out the president’s age or fitness for the job.  

The rumor began when social media users pointed out a sound around the 34-second mark in the Forbes video, which could be perceived as a “fart noise” or an indication of defecation. Some users claimed that attendees at the news conference visibly reacted to the noise. 

For instance, Reddit users pointed out that the blond woman in green over Trump’s right shoulder, identified as Kathryn Burgum, wife of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and Attorney General Pam Bondi appeared to react. 

Kathryn Burgum and Bondi both appeared to look toward Trump at the moment in question and then turn away. However, it was just as possible that the women were reacting to the words being spoken by Martin Makary, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, who was addressing Trump and standing to Bondi’s right.

For further reading, Snopes previously investigated claims of an oil executive complaining about Trump’s farts and whether former President Joe Biden pooped his pants in Rome. 

Claim:

A video authentically documents the aftermath of an anti-ICE protest in Minneapolis on Jan. 30, 2026, showing demonstrators broke dozens of car windows during a march.

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Context

The video showing a row of parked vehicles with broken windows dated to Jan. 29, the day before the Jan. 30 anti-ICE demonstration. Minneapolis Police spokesperson Trevor Folke confirmed to Snopes details of the window-smashing incident on Jan. 29, adding, “There is nothing to indicate the damage was related to protest activity.” It was unknown who broke the windows at the time of this writing.

A rumor that circulated online in January 2026 claimed a video documented the aftermath of a protest against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis on Jan. 30, 2026, and showed that demonstrators broke dozens of car windows during their march.

For example, users on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived) and X (archived) shared the video, which consisted of two clips simultaneously playing side by side. The video on the left showed an alleged aerial view of a Jan. 30 anti-ICE protest in Minneapolis, and the video on the right showed construction workers looking at a row of parked vehicles with shattered windows.

The caption of one such post read, “BREAKING – Leftist anti ICE agitators marched through Minneapolis yesterday, smashing the driver side windows of cars they encountered and leaving many construction and blue collar workers with their vehicles destroyed.”

Other (archived) users (archived) shared (archived) only the clip showing smashed car windows (or still images from the clip), also alleging the people who demonstrated on Jan. 30 vandalized the vehicles. The clip displayed the caption, “60 Windows broken into working downtown Minneapolis.”

In short, both clips (the aerial view of the protest and the footage of the smashed windows) were real videos of scenes in Minneapolis, which meant they were not generated using artificial intelligence (AI). But the claim that the parked vehicles showed damage from protesters on Jan. 30 was false. In other words, users who spread the rumor were sharing genuine videos with misleading and untrue captions.

In reality, the video showing construction workers and broken car windows originated from Jan. 29, the day before the Jan. 30 anti-ICE march, and the identity of the individual (or individuals) who smashed the windows was unknown.

Minneapolis Police spokesperson Trevor Folke confirmed to Snopes via email the contents of a Jan. 29 incident report documenting 24 damaged vehicles in the same location as the video. Folke added, “There is nothing to indicate the damage was related to protest activity.”

Reports of people breaking windows on multiple cars in one area have long affected Minneapolis residents, before 2026 anti-ICE protests. Online searches for the terms “Minneapolis” and “broken car windows” located numerous news articles and video reports since July 2025 documenting cases of people breaking dozens or hundreds of car windows in sprees.

In the side-by-side video, the left side clip authentically matched a high-angle view (archived) of a large Minneapolis “ICE Out” march on Jan. 30. The original videographer was unknown. 

A reverse image search found the video showing construction workers looking at the car window damage originated with Instagram user @grantamelse. That account posted (archived) the video just after 11 a.m. on Jan. 29. (We submitted a comment under the user’s post asking for further information about the video, including if the user personally filmed it and, if so, when.)

The location in the user’s video — found in Google “Street View” — matched the area of East 21st Street, just west of 14th Avenue South, in Minneapolis. Construction depicted in the clip pertained to a new building for the Native American Community Clinic. We did not locate evidence suggesting a large crowd of protesters marched on the same block on Jan. 30.

A second video (archived) documenting the same vehicle damage appeared online before the Jan. 30 protest and march. A third video posted (archived) on Feb. 1 featured a caption alleging the crime occurred morning of Jan. 29.

People across the U.S. dubbed Jan. 30 a “Nationwide Day of Action,” urging people not to go to school, work or shop in protest of the U.S. President Donald Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics. Crowds in cities nationwide, in addition to Minneapolis, took to the streets. The protests followed the Minneapolis fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of federal agents.

Similarly, we previously fact-checked a photo that some people erroneously believed showed mounds of trash left by protesters in Seattle.

Sources

Claim:

A photo authentically showed U.S. President Donald Trump and the deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein with his arm around a young female standing in a room with a group of children.

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At the end of January 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) released more than 3 million files relating to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. In the days after the release, an image (archived) circulated online that internet users claimed showed U.S. President Donald Trump standing beside Epstein, who had one arm around what appeared to be a female teenager or very young woman. In the foreground of the image was a group of five children looking toward an unseen photographer. A handwritten caption at the top of the image read, “7/7/97.”

According to the DOJ, the Jan. 30 file release covered investigations into Epstein when he was alive and after his death in a Manhattan prison in 2019, as well as investigations into the people close to him. The FBI concluded in 2025 that Epstein died by suicide while awaiting trial on charges including sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors. 

One Threads user who posted the image wrote, “Hmmmmm , picture tells a story..”

The image also circulated on Facebook and X (archived, archived). Snopes readers wrote in, asking about the photo and whether it was authentic, meaning not generated by artificial intelligence (AI) or doctored using digital editing tools.

The image bore clear signs of the use of AI. Trump and three of the children shown had either too few or too many fingers or lacked detail in their hands or faces. The photo showed Epstein with dark or black hair, though a real photo taken in the weeks before July 7, 1997, for the reputable photo agency Getty Images showed Epstein with grey hair that appeared much lighter in photos. 

Given the above, we’ve rated the image fake.

Image not linked to DOJ Epstein files releases

It was unclear at the time of this writing who created or edited the image. Reverse image searches found no trace of the photo online before the DOJ’s Epstein files release on Jan. 30, 2026. Searches of parts of the image (the children in the foreground or Epstein or Trump behind them) also revealed no links to authentic photos, appearing to suggest that whoever created the image did so from scratch rather than by stitching together existing photos.

One Facebook user who posted (archived) the image on Jan. 31, the day after the DOJ released the batch of files, appeared to suggest it came from a since-deleted document in that release. That document, with the file name “EFTA01660679,” was not online at the time of this writing, so Snopes could not independently verify this reported connection. 

According to a version of the since-deleted file uploaded to the website of Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., “EFTA01660679” did not include any images. The self-described “pro-democracy” media outlet MeidasTouch also uploaded a copy (archived) of the file that matched Moulton’s and likewise did not feature any images.

Snopes asked the DOJ whether the image appeared in the since-deleted file or in other releases by the department and await a reply.

Hands, faces, hair, give fake image away

The image of Trump, Epstein, the young female and the children bore classic signs of AI use, even though the AI image detectors SightEngine and ZeroGPT found a low likelihood of AI generation. (It’s worth noting that AI image detectors are not always reliable, especially for images generated using latest-generation AI models.)

The most obvious of these were poorly rendered hands, which is a common AI slip-up. Trump appeared to have only four fingers on his right hand, while a child at the front of the image appeared to have six on their left. Another child’s hand also appeared misshapen. Additionally, the nose of one of the children appeared to blend into the child’s face in an unnatural way.

(Facebook user Cee Postblocked)

Trump appeared older in the fake image than in a real photo of him and Epstein from Getty Images taken five months before the claimed July 7, 1997, caption on the fake image. Epstein’s hair appeared dark brown or black in the alleged July 7, 1997, image, whereas a photo from June 20 that same year showed him with much lighter, grey hair. (It did not appear the Epstein dyed his hair, as photos from Getty Images throughout the 1990s and 2000s showed him with the same grey hair.)

Trump had a well-known and documented friendship with Epstein, according to reporting by The Associated Press. Trump previously said in 2019 that he hadn’t spoken to Epstein “for 15 years.” The U.S. president’s name features repeatedly in the Epstein files, none of those mentions have led to formal charges as of this writing. Inclusion of someone’s name or picture in the Epstein files does not necessarily imply wrongdoing.

Snopes has reported extensively on claims related to the Epstein files.

Sources

Claim:

Women in Allied countries during World War II wore red lipstick because Germany’s Nazi Chancellor Adolf Hitler hated it.

Rating:

For years, rumors have circulated that women in Allied countries during World War II wore red lipstick as a way to stand up to Germany’s Nazi Chancellor Adolf Hitler. According to the claim, he favored clean, makeup-free faces.

For example, a post on X claimed Hitler thought red lipstick was “impure” (archived):

https://x.com/Sunthar_16/status/2011296017036308744

The post read:

Adolf Hitler HATED RED LIPSTICK

 He believed German women should look Natural, Simple, and Restrained. To him, makeup was UN-GERMAN, symbolizing artificiality and moral decay. He viewed bold red lipstick as impure, a sign of excessive sexuality and French influence, and reportedly banned it for women visiting his private residence.

The claim has also turned up on Reddit, Facebook, X and Instagram.

This is true. We found that this fact actually gave rise to enduring lipstick brands and colors. 

In an interview on WNYC show The Takeaway, British journalist Madeleine Marsh, author of the book “Compacts and Cosmetics: Beauty from Victorian Times to the Present Day,” said red lipstick went against Hitler’s idea of the ideal woman:

“The Aryan ideal was a pure, un-scrubbed face. Visitors to Hitler’s country retreat, lady visitors were actually given a little list of things they must not do: avoid excessive cosmetics, avoid red lipstick, and on no account ever are they to color their nails.”

We found further evidence that Nazis viewed clean faces and simplicity as the ideal for girls and women. For example, in a 2021 paper published in The Saber and Scroll Historical Journal titled “The Bund Deutscher Mädel [the League of German Girls] and the Indoctrination of the German Girl,” scholar Sarah Weiler wrote:

The goal began with creating a new, Nazi femininity — a sharp contrast to how the Weimar woman were perceived — the Nazi woman was simple, restrained, and knew her place in society, subjugated first to her father and then her husband. Gone was the cosmopolitan woman of the Weimar who drank, smoked, painted her face, and dressed in the style of the French. German women were to be subdued in their beauty, with simple clothes and humble plaits, the human embodiment of Nordic simplicity.

Further, in a 1943 speech, Nazi Party chief propagandist Joseph Goebbels reiterated this idea:

What good are beauty shops that encourage a cult of beauty and take enormous time and energy? In peace they are wonderful, but a waste of time during war. Our women and girls will be able to greet our victorious returning soldiers without their peacetime finery.

In other words, perhaps more significant than Hitler’s personal distaste for red lipstick, historical research shows the Nazi ideal of femininity was clean faces on girls and women.

Red lipstick had been a symbol of defiance long before World War II. While red lips in ancient Egypt were the prerogative of the elite — Cleopatra famously wore red lip makeup — they soon were associated with women of ill repute (sex workers had to wear it by law in ancient Greece so as not to pass for “decent” ladies).

But red lips gained favor again when women began to fight for their rights in the early 20th century. Rachel Felder, an American journalist, dedicated a book to the cosmetic titled “Red Lipstick: An Ode to a Beauty Icon.” In it, she recounts how, when the suffragettes in the New York City marched for their right to vote, they first stopped by the shop of Elizabeth Arden to pick up a tube of red lipstick. Arden, who had recently opened her shop, supported their cause, and handed them out for free. After this, suffragettes around the world began to wear red lipstick as well. 

The lip color returned in fashion during World War II. As soon as women in Allied countries and in the resistance learned of Hitler’s distaste for it, they adopted it as a show of resistance. In Britain, Felder says, the women were so intent on wearing red lipstick they would stain their lips with beet juice if they could not find or afford the tubes.

The Allied powers took note, and the U.S. Army commissioned new red lipstick for its female staff and troops. Victory Red appeared (which the company Bésame relaunched in 2016), and Elizabeth Arden’s Montezuma Red even matched the red piping of the women’s Marine uniform, as shown in this advertisement for the lipstick in Vogue on April 15, 1944. The U.S. Army thought it would project resolve, showing women were joining the fight, and boost morale.

This history shows that makeup isn’t just a frivolous pursuit, but that it can shape the culture, even affecting the course of war.

Sources

Claim:

Los Angeles gang members called a truce with each other in order to help protect immigrants from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “abductions.”

Rating:

A rumor spread online in January 2026 that street gangs in Los Angeles agreed to a truce with each other in an effort to help protect immigrants from being “abducted” by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

The rumor spread amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s self-described immigration crackdown, with posts like the below-displayed TikTok (archived) video. 

https://www.tiktok.com/@afterthebite/photo/7594678173682437389

That TikTok video, posted on Jan. 12, 2026, features a screenshot of an X post reading: “BREAKING: Several gangs in LA are reportedly trucing so they can accompany people to their immigration hearings and prevent ICE from abducting them, and it’s effective because ICE officials are afraid of them, which is why ICE goes after assimilated immigrants with families.“

Some readers seemed to interpret the rumor as the truth, but no evidence exists that street gangs in Los Angeles called for a truce in order to defend immigrants from ICE. No reputable news outlets reported this claim. 

Instead, the rumor originated with a post from an account called The Halfway Post — a social media page that describes its output as humorous or satirical in nature. The bio on the X page reads: “Halfway true comedy and satire by @DashMacIntyre. I don’t report the facts, I improve them.“ Furthermore, The Halfway Post sells a book, titled, “Satire in the Trump Years.“

This particular claim has been circulating since at least June 2025. That’s when the Halfway Post published the X post (archived) featured in the January 2026 TikTok video.

Though this particular claim was labeled satire, on June 24, 2025, the Los Angeles Times reported a story about the vice mayor of Cudahy, a city in Los Angeles County, allegedly calling for gang members to protect their neighborhoods from ICE. 

Snopes has addressed similar satirical claims involving ICE, including claims California Democrats bought bricks for protesters, Fox News aired a chyron of Attorney General Pam Bondi threatening Trump critics with prison time and ICE paused its hotline due to an influx of calls about Elon Musk.

For background, here is why we alert readers to rumors created by sources that call their output humorous or satirical.

Claim:

Three similar videos shared online in January 2026 authentically showed alligators stealing rotisserie chickens from Walmart stores in Florida.

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In January 2026, at least three videos (archived, archived, archived) circulated online purportedly showing alligators snatching rotisserie chickens from Walmart stores in Florida. 

The clips, which looked like news reports, featured different footage of what appeared to be a thieving reptile with a rotisserie chicken clamped between its jaws. One version of the videos appeared as follows on the Facebook page “Extreme Living.”

The caption read: “Only in Florida tonight—an alligator casually walked into a Walmart, grabbed a rotisserie chicken, and ate it right in the store”

That footage also circulated on Instagram (archived) and Bluesky (archived), while Snopes readers contacted us asking if the videos and stories were real.

In short, the three videos of alligators allegedly stealing rotisserie chickens from Walmart stores were fake. The “About” page of the “Extreme Living” Facebook account that posted all three read: “Hey yall! Welcome to Extreme Living where we ai content that everyone can enjoy.” Its header image read: “America’s Favorite AI videos.” 

In line with the page’s own statements that it creates content using artificial intelligence (AI) software, all three clips of alligators allegedly stealing rotisserie chickens showed clear signs of AI use. 

Inspecting alligator videos

Extreme Living’s videos claimed that alligators had stolen rotisserie chickens in Ocala, St. Petersburg and Wesley Chapel, all in Florida. A search on Google (archived) uncovered no credible reports of such events occurring in any Walmart in Florida. 

Additionally, all three clips showed clear signs of AI use. 

(Facebook user Extreme Living/Snopes Illustration)

Extreme Living generated at least one of its alligator videos using Sora, a generative AI model from OpenAI. Sora’s watermark, which the tool adds to content created on its platform, appeared at two points in one clip.

Two additional videos had issues with garbled text. In one, a “reporter’s” microphone and jacket logo read “7 Lews,” while in another the microphone featured several illegible characters before the word “cast.” That video also featured signage inside a “Walmart” that read “Róehead” (possibly a garbling of “Reduced”) and showed what looked like an “A” instead of a price on one “Róehead” sign.

Garbled text such as incorrectly spelled words or the use of symbols that are not letters is a typical sign of AI use in images and videos.

The “7 Lews” report also showed a newsreader with distorted fingers, another classic indicator of AI-generation.

For further reading, Snopes routinely investigates and debunks AI-generated content.

Sources

Claim:

About 130,000 people without legal immigration status reside in Minnesota, as opposed to 2.1 million in Texas and 1.6 million in Florida.

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Context

The numbers were accurate according to credible population estimates, but they reflected conditions in 2023. That was the most recent data available as of this writing. Furthermore, any statistics attempting to depict the number of people living in the country illegally are estimations; they are likely undercounts due to people not reporting their situations truthfully or at all.

As the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) enacted a widespread immigration enforcement crackdown in Minnesota in late 2025 and early 2026, social media users circulated statistics allegedly indicating that relatively few immigrants without legal status lived in the Democratic state — as opposed to Republican states like Texas and Florida. 

Posts online claimed 130,000 people without legal immigration status lived in Minnesota, whereas 2.1 million resided in Texas and 1.6 or 1.2 million in Florida. These statistics, which Snopes readers also asked us to verify, spread on X, Facebook, Reddit and Threads. 

Some social media users emphasized that Texas and Florida historically vote Republican in presidential elections, as opposed to Minnesota, which leans Democratic, appearing to imply that President Donald Trump’s Republican administration was targeting political opponents with immigration enforcement. 

Exact totals for the number of people who live in the U.S. illegally are nearly impossible to obtain. The population has major incentives to not answer questions about their situation truthfully or at all. Demographers rely on the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS), a survey of residents, for the best possible estimations.

The tallies in the social media posts (2.1 million people in Texas, 1.6 million in Florida and 130,000 in Minnesota) came from 2023 data released in 2025 by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, as several posts accurately noted. Pew has published estimates of the “U.S. unauthorized immigrant population” for more than two decades, relying on the ACS to do so. The 2023 totals were the most recent available as of this writing. 

In other words, the data came from a reputable source but did not necessarily represent population estimates in 2026. Those numbers would not be available for several years, as they rely on the ACS, which takes time to tabulate. Thus, we have rated this claim mostly true. 

By email, Snopes asked DHS for updated and detailed state-by-state population estimates, as well as questions about why it was targeting Minnesota for immigration enforcement in January 2026. 

The department did not address those inquiries and responded with a list of people the agency said it has apprehended in Minnesota on suspicion of violent crimes. The agency also sent a link to an X post by Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem that blamed Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, both Democrats, for refusing “to protect their own people and instead protect criminals.” 

Under former President Joe Biden, a Democrat, DHS acknowledged both Pew Research and another nonpartisan research organization, the Center for Migration Studies, as reputable sources for the estimated number of immigrants living the U.S. without legal status, as evidenced in an April 2024 report (see Page 10).

All three sources (DHS, Pew Research and the Center for Migration Studies) use the ACS to calculate estimates. They have similar, but not identical, estimates due to “key differences in methodological details,” such as how they adjust for census undercounting, according to Page 10 of DHS’ 2024 report. That doesn’t mean any of the sources are more accurate than the others — just that each institution uses different techniques to estimate the population size.

Pew Research data

The numbers in the social media posts stemmed from a Pew report that published on Aug. 21, 2025. The report included a table showing “unauthorized immigrants and characteristics for states, 2023.” 

That table indicated Minnesota’s population of immigrants in the country illegally was about 130,000, or 2.2% of the total population; Florida’s was 1.6 million people, or 6.9% of the population, and Texas’ was 2.05 million people, or 6.6% of the total population. 

Pew rounded the population totals, but did not round numbers for the population percentages. In the published report, Pew also rounded its estimate for Texas to 2.1 million, which may explain where the social media posts got that number. 

Here’s the research center’s map showing the estimations:

(Pew Research Center)

Other sources

DHS publishes partial estimates on what it calls the country’s “unauthorized immigrant population” by state. 

As of this writing, the most recent DHS report was published on April 18, 2024, depicting data between 2018 and 2022. That report includes state-by-state population statistics for only 10 states — places in the country where the most people without legal immigration status reside. 

As such, DHS published numbers for Texas and Florida, which ranked No. 2 and No. 3, respectively, but not Minnesota. (The state with the largest population of people in the country illegally is California, according to the report.) 

According to DHS’ report, in 2022, Texas had an estimated 2.06 million immigrants living in the country illegally and Florida had 590,000 (see Page 5). 

Pew’s report indicated that Florida’s population has had the biggest growth, adding an estimated 700,000 immigrants without legal status between 2021 and 2023, which may explain the discrepancy between DHS’ estimate for 2022 (590,000) and Pew’s estimate for 2023 (1.6 million).

The other organization DHS mentioned in its report, the Center for Migration Studies, has published a map showing estimates of the populations by state, using data from 2023. That map showed an estimated 104,900 immigrants living in the U.S. illegally in Minnesota, 1.025 million in Florida and a little over 2.05 million in Texas.

“Comparing Trump and Obama’s Deportation Priorities.” Bipartisan Policy Center, 27 Feb. 2017, bipartisanpolicy.org/article/comparing-trump-and-obamas-deportation-priorities/. Accessed 27 Jan. 2026.

Gooding, Dan. “Donald Trump’s Deportation Record Compared to Barack Obama’s.” Newsweek, 15 Jan. 2026, www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-deportation-record-compared-barack-obama-11368075. Accessed 27 Jan. 2026.

Sierra, Sofia. “Did President Obama Remove More Noncitizens from the U.S. Than Any Other President in U.S History?” El Paso Matters, 13 Feb. 2025, elpasomatters.org/2025/02/13/gigafact-fact-brief-most-deportations-obama-trump-removals/. Accessed 27 Jan. 2026.

Wagner, John. “Trump Touted Obama’s 2005 Remarks on Immigration. Here’s What Obama Actually Said.” The Washington Post, 24 Oct. 2018, www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-touted-obamas-2005-remarks-on-immigration-heres-what-obama-actually-said/2018/10/24/1ed845c0-d782-11e8-aeb7-ddcad4a0a54e_story.html. Accessed 27 Jan. 2026.

Wolf, Zachary B. “Yes, Obama Deported More People than Trump but Context Is Everything.” CNN, 13 July 2019, www.cnn.com/2019/07/13/politics/obama-trump-deportations-illegal-immigration. Accessed 27 Jan. 2026.

Claim:

CBS reported in January 2026 that U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar’s suspected attacker, Anthony James Kazmierczak, “is actually on Omar’s payroll, pulling in $50,000 a year from her phony winery.”

Rating:

In January 2026, a rumor circulated online claiming that CBS reported the man suspected of attacking Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar during a Minneapolis town hall on Jan. 27 was “actually on Omar’s payroll.”

The rumor spread on social media platforms like Facebook (archived) and X (archived) following the incident, in which a man, later identified as Anthony Kazmierczak, sprayed Omar with liquid while she was speaking.

The posts claimed CBS revealed that Kazmierczak was employed at Omar’s “phony winery,” an apparent reference to a winery in Santa Rosa, California, in which Omar’s husband, Tim Mynett, holds a financial interest. 

U.S. President Donald Trump targeted Omar’s financial disclosures the day before the attack, posting on social media that “the DOJ and Congress are looking at ‘Congresswoman’ Illhan Omar, who left Somalia with NOTHING, and is now reportedly worth more than 44 Million Dollars.”

On Jan. 26, 2026, The New York Times reported that a previous U.S. Department of Justice investigation into Omar’s finances had “stalled for lack of evidence.”

Multiple Snopes readers reached out for clarity on the claim about the supposed CBS report. 

There was no evidence that CBS reported that Kazmierczak was employed by Omar.  

A search of the CBS News website returned no results making such a claim. A Google search of “Kazmierczak” and “winery” also did not return any relevant results from credible news outlets.

CBS News reported on the attack, but did not include the allegation that Omar employed Kazmierczak.

Rather, the Facebook account (archived) that appeared to originate the story belonged to a self-described comedian named Jonathan Gregory who also claimed he was a “Digital Content Creator for the Trump Administration” employed at conservative media outlet Newsmax. 

Gregory has not yet responded to Snopes’ request for comment on his post about Kazmierczak, but we have reported on past posts from the same account that indicated satirical origins. 

Gregory’s lengthy post featured his name in a byline that suggested it was an official Newsmax publication, but a search of the Newsmax website featured no bylines from Gregory. Newsmax’s coverage of the attack on Omar did not include any mention of Kazmierczak’s alleged employment by her. 

In the hours following the Jan. 27 attack on Omar, U.S. President Donald Trump promoted the unsubstantiated claim that Omar staged it.

Gregory’s Facebook post concluded, “This farce underscores why Trump is the only leader who can restore integrity to Washington: no more staged distractions, no more fake businesses funding anti-American agendas.”

Sources

Claim:

Former Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce established the Renee Good Hope Scholarship Fund in honor of the woman fatally shot by an ICE agent in Minneapolis in January 2026 and contributed $300,000.

Rating:

A rumor that circulated online in January 2026 claimed former Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce established the Renee Good Hope Scholarship Fund. Users who posted about the claim said Kelce kicked off the fund with $300,000 of his own money.

The supposed scholarship fund referenced Renee Good, a 37-year-old Minneapolis resident fatally shot Jan. 7 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Jonathan Ross.

For example, on Jan. 26, a user managing the Chiefs Strategy Central Facebook page posted (archived) an image collage of three pictures purportedly depicting Kelce hugging Good’s son, Good holding her son in front of a body of water and Kelce crying by himself. The post’s text claimed Good’s killing inspired Kelce to launch the Renee Good Hope Scholarship Fund, including the $300,000 contribution.

In short, the rumor was false. One or more users fabricated and promoted the claim with the help of images and text generated with artificial-intelligence tools.

Snopes contacted a manager of the Chiefs Strategy Central Facebook page to ask about the fictional stories and AI-generated content displayed on the feed. The page’s “page transparency” tab listed five page managers residing in Vietnam.

We also emailed Kelce for comment via the Wondery podcast company, which manages his “New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce” podcast, and will update this story if we receive more information.

Ad-filled articles, AI and glurge

The Chiefs Strategy Central Facebook post (archived) — as well as other Facebook posts (archived) sharing the same rumor — featured links leading to advertisement-filled articles hosted on WordPress blogs. The users owning those blogs earned revenue based on the combination of advertising and made-up stories. The Chiefs Strategy Central post redirected to an article on an untrustworthy website.

Searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo and Yahoo found no news media outlets reporting about Kelce establishing a scholarship fund in Good’s name. A Google search did, however, mistakenly produce an AI-generated answer wrongly confirming the rumor as true. That AI answer displayed two Facebook posts as the alleged authoritative sources for the false information. Outlets would have widely reported on the story involving Kelce and Good, had it truly occurred.

(Google)

Regarding the fake, AI-generated photo of Kelce holding Good’s son, the most evident sign of AI was that sports and news outlets would have widely publicized the moment had the meeting between the former NFL player and boy truly taken place.

Google Gemini’s SynthID Detector tool found a digital watermark indicating someone used a Google AI tool for at least part of the image’s creation, as well as for the image showing Kelce in tears.

The Chiefs Strategy Central Facebook post’s text featured over-dramatic wording common with AI tools. For example, one part of the post read, “There were no cameras chasing charity. No speeches asking for praise. Just a quiet, powerful act of humanity — proving that even after violence and heartbreak, compassion can still speak louder than silence.” Additionally, the idea that individuals or teams aiming to rapidly produce inauthentic content for ad revenue would carefully, slowly and manually write text for their articles simply does not square with reality.

Whoever authored the story about Kelce and Good fabricated the entire claim as one of hundreds of inspirational tales that depicted celebrities and athletes performing inspiring acts of kindness. Such stories resemble glurge, which Dictionary.com defines as stories “that are supposed to be true and uplifting, but which are often fabricated and sentimental.”

The Chiefs Strategy Central Facebook post’s claims

For readers interested in the story told in the Chiefs Strategy Central Facebook post, the post presented the made-up tale as follows:

🚨 BREAKING: Jason Kelce turns grief into hope — and ensures one child’s future will never be forgotten.

This isn’t about headlines.
This is about a life lost — and a promise made.

Jason Kelce has officially established The Renee Good Hope Scholarship Fund, personally committing $300,000 to honor Renee Nicole Good, a mother whose life ended in tragedy in Minneapolis — a loss that left an entire community grieving and searching for meaning.

But this moment goes far beyond a financial figure.

Kelce founded the scholarship himself, with one clear purpose: to guarantee that Renee’s 6-year-old son will receive full educational support from elementary school through college — tuition, books, tutoring, and opportunities for personal growth. Not someday. Not partially. Fully.

This wasn’t delegated.
This wasn’t symbolic.

Alongside the donation, Kelce dedicated his voice, his platform, and his heart to a child now learning how to live in a world without his mother.

“This is about remembering Renee with dignity,” one close source shared. “And making sure her son never feels alone.”

Across the nation, people weren’t moved by the size of the check — but by the intent behind it. A deliberate choice to say: her life mattered. That her son’s future will be protected, supported, and filled with hope, even after unimaginable loss.

There were no cameras chasing charity.
No speeches asking for praise.

🔥 Just a quiet, powerful act of humanity — proving that even after violence and heartbreak, compassion can still speak louder than silence.

#FlyEaglesFly #EaglesNation #GoodHope #HumanityFirst #LegacyBeyondFootball 

For further reading, we previously reported about a fake quote attributed to Kelce, wrongly claiming he said, “If Bad Bunny is a bad fit for the Super Bowl, then maybe the people making these comments are a bad fit for America’s future.” We also debunked a similar claim about Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts establishing a scholarship fund in Good’s memory.

Warning: This story contains graphic content.

After federal immigration officers fatally shot Alex Pretti, a U.S. citizen and intensive care nurse, in Minneapolis on Jan. 24, 2026, members of the surrounding community came together to create a memorial to Pretti and to protest the massive federal presence in the city. A video shared to social media of one such protest appearing to show an injured protester circulated online . 

Many internet users shared the video with captions stating that a less-than-lethal round — a type of ammunition designed to incapacitate or stun subjects — fired by federal agents struck the protester’s hand, causing serious injury. Others said the person had picked up a flash-bang grenade that then detonated, causing their injuries.

As the footage of the incident went viral, Snopes readers wrote in and searched the site looking for more information. We reached out to the person who originally posted the video to social media but had not heard back at time of publication. We also contacted the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to allow them to comment. They also had not responded. 

We were able to confirm that the footage taken of the incident, after the protester had been injured, was real. However, despite an extensive search, we were unable to find additional video evidence showing how the individual was injured. As such, this story remains unrated. 

The video contained no signs of being generated using artificial intelligence tools. Snopes geolocated the footage to the intersection of Blaisdell Avenue and West 26th Street, one block from where Pretti died. The point of view faced toward the location of the memorial to Pretti set up at the intersection of Nicollet Avenue and West 26th Street, although it was hidden under a white smoke, likely tear gas. A large, armored vehicle can be seen in the background. Reporting and other social media video confirmed that federal agents were in the area around the memorial to Pretti and were using armored vehicles like the one seen in the background of the video.

The earliest example of the video Snopes found online was posted on Jan. 25, 2026, the day after Pretti was shot. In Reddit comments, the user who initially uploaded the video, under the title “Protestors finger blown apart by Ice gestapo at Alex Pretti protest in Minneapolis“ said it was taken by a “buddy” on Jan. 24. Pretti was shot at 9 a.m. that morning.

In the footage, a person runs away from the memorial holding their left hand and takes off a gas mask, before collapsing on the ground and writhing, seemingly in pain. Several protesters yell for medics, and multiple people quickly approach the person, likely to offer medical care. 

Although Snopes reviewed the footage frame by frame, the extent of the protester’s injury was unclear. Some posts and comments claimed one or multiple of the individual’s fingers had been “blown off” or partially detached from their hand. In comments, others suggested the protester was burned when grabbing a tear gas canister, which can be very hot.

Does this video show Alex Pretti receiving ‘honor walk’ at Minneapolis VA hospital he worked at?

Jan. 28, 2026

Some internet users said the video, which spread widely after Pretti’s death, showed medical sta …

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Claim:

Images from January 2026 authentically depict a photo of U.S. President Donald Trump with Russian President Vladimir Putin hanging in the White House.

Rating:

In January 2026, a rumor circulated online that a photograph of U.S. President Donald Trump with Russian President Vladimir Putin hung in the White House above a photo of Trump with one of his grandchildren. 

The images spread across multiple platforms (archived, archived), sparking backlash from critics online who have long accused Trump of aligning himself too closely with Putin, particularly during Russia’s war with Ukraine.

The images first began circulating after PBS’ White House correspondent Elizabeth Landers posted two photos on X (archived), writing: 

Also something I noticed in a vestibule area that connects the West Wing to the residence that I hadn’t see before: a framed photo of Presidents Trump and Putin at their summer summit in Alaska. Lower photo is President Trump with one of his grandchildren.

The images Landers posted authentically depict a photograph of Trump and Putin hanging in the White House. The photo, which is visible on the White House website, was taken during a historic meeting between the two leaders in Alaska on Aug. 15, 2025. 

Landers wasn’t the only person to document the photograph’s presence in the White House. A photo taken by Bloomberg photographer Kent Nishimura is publicly available on Getty Images.

The “vestibule area” Landers referenced was the White House’s newly renovated Palm Room. A photo of the Palm Room on Getty Images displayed the same latticed wall texture seen in Landers’ images:

(Getty Images)

We wrote to the White House seeking confirmation that the rumor was true. In response, a White House Official emailed the following statement:

There is nothing unusual for the White House to hang up photos around the complex of the President’s public meetings and events. There are photos of several other instances when the President Trump met with world leaders. The photos around the complex are constantly updated and rotated as new photos are captured.

Trump also posted photos of the renovated Palm Room in December 2025, including one that featured the photo of him and Putin:

(Truth Social user @realDonaldTrump)

The photo below the one of Trump and Putin shows the U.S. president with his granddaughter Carolina Trump. Several similar photos of the two attending the NASCAR Daytona 500 race in February 2025 appeared in news stories about the event and others are publicly available on Getty Images.

Sources