Category: Fact Checking

Congress Releases Jack Smith’s Testimony about Trump Prosecutions. 31 Dec. 2025, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0mkn2ylv3zo.

Gannon, Tierney Sneed, Holmes Lybrand,Marshall Cohen,Zachary Cohen,Devan Cole,Hannah Rabinowitz,Katelyn Polantz,Casey. “Donald Trump Has Been Indicted in Special Counsel’s 2020 Election Interference Probe | CNN Politics.” CNN, 1 Aug. 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/01/politics/donald-trump-indictment-grand-jury-2020-election.

Garrett, Luke. “In Transcript of Closed-Door Testimony, Jack Smith Defends His Prosecutions of Trump.” NPR, 2 Jan. 2026. Politics. NPR, https://www.npr.org/2026/01/02/nx-s1-5664140/in-transcript-of-closed-door-testimony-jack-smith-defends-his-prosecutions-of-trump.

Herb, Tierney Sneed, Marshall Cohen,Jeremy. “Special Counsel Brings More Charges against Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago Classified Documents Case | CNN Politics.” CNN, 27 July 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/27/politics/trump-mar-a-lago-special-counsel.

“Jack Smith Will Testify Publicly about His Trump Investigations.” PBS News, 13 Jan. 2026, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/jack-smith-will-testify-publicly-about-his-trump-investigations.

“Read Jack Smith’s Full Deposition on the Decision to Indict Trump.” PBS News, 31 Dec. 2025, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-jack-smiths-full-deposition-on-the-decision-to-indict-trump.

“Trump Wants Judge to Block His Own DOJ from Releasing Jack Smith’s Mar-a-Lago Report.” The Independent, 21 Jan. 2026, https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-jack-smith-mar-a-lago-report-b2904886.html.

Claim:

The United States purchased land from Denmark in 1917, which included Little St. James, the private island later owned by disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and nicknamed “Epstein island.”

Rating:

Context

At the time of the sale in 1917, the island was one of many small islets part of the larger territories sold by Denmark to the United States. Epstein bought Little St. James in 1998 and the nearby Greater St. James in 2016.

In January 2026, as U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration ramped up its campaign to acquire Greenland, a territory of Denmark, a rumor circulated online claiming that Denmark had, in 1917, sold land to the U.S. that included an island later nicknamed “Epstein island” after its eventual owner, disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. 

Snopes readers searched our website for evidence that Denmark sold the island to the U.S. According to posts on Facebook, X and Reddit, the island of Little St. James was sold by Denmark to the U.S. in 1917. For example, one Facebook post read:

Little Saint James was sold by Denmark to the United States as part of the 1917 transfer of the Danish West Indies 

The 1917 “Lansing Declaration” meant Denmark agreeing to sell the West Indies while the U.S. dropped any potential objections to Denmark’s full control over Greenland.

So Denmark traded away an island that would decades later become synonymous with one of America’s darkest modern scandals, in part to lock in Greenland forever. Now a U.S. president with personal ties to that scandal is using economic coercion on Denmark (and allies) to take control of Greenland.

Spooky!

In 1917, Denmark sold three islands — known as the Danish West Indies — and their adjoining smaller islets to the United States in an agreement titled “Convention between the United States and Denmark for the Cession of the Danish West Indies.” Little St. James was a minor island close to St. Thomas, one of the three major islands. This group of islands would be renamed the U.S. Virgin Islands. At the time, Little St. James was not known as Epstein island or any similar names, as the billionaire didn’t purchase it until 1998. 

Because Denmark did sell the island later known as “Epstein island” to the U.S. in 1917, we’ve rated this claim as true.

The U.S. bought what are now the U.S. Virgin Islands from Denmark for $25 million in gold coin through the agreement, which was signed in August 1916 and proclaimed in January 1917. A transcript of the agreement is available on the website of the State Department’s Office of the Historian.

Little St. James was one of the small islets surrounding the three major islands included in the sale — St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix. According to the 1917 convention between Denmark and the United States (emphasis ours): 

His Majesty the King of Denmark by this convention cedes to the United States all territory, dominion and sovereignty, possessed, asserted or claimed by Denmark in the West Indies including the Islands of Saint Thomas, Saint John and Saint Croix together with the adjacent islands and rocks.

This cession includes the right of property in all public, government, or crown lands, public buildings, wharves, ports, harbors, fortifications, barracks, public funds, rights, franchises, and privileges, and all other public property of every kind or description now belonging to Denmark together with all appurtenances thereto.

This sale also ensured that the U.S. accepted Danish control over Greenland. An addendum to the convention preserved in the Danish National Archives stated (emphasis ours):

In proceeding this day to the signature of the Convention respecting the cession of the Danish West-Indian Islands to the United States of America, the undersigned Secretary of State of the United States of America, duly authorized by his Government, has the honor to declare that the Government of the United States of America will not object to the Danish Government extending their political and economic interests to the whole of Greenland.

According to an analysis on History.com, the U.S. had been interested in the islands since the 19th century. In 1915, fearing a German annexation of the region, the U.S. began pushing Denmark more aggressively and U.S. Secretary of State Robert Lansing even insinuated to the Danish that the U.S. would take over if they did not agree to a sale. Denmark eventually relented in order to prevent a U.S. military takeover. 

Denmark’s 1917 sale to the U.S. is also considered to be the last time the U.S. bought land from Denmark. As Greenland had proven to be a strategic asset for the U.S. military during World War II, the U.S. attempted to purchase it in 1946 with a $100 million offer that Denmark refused. A 1951 agreement between the U.S. and Denmark gave the U.S. greater access to the region to build, expand and run military bases. The U.S. still maintains a military presence in Greenland through the Pituffik Space Base. 

Per U.S. Virgin Island court records, Epstein bought Little St. James in 1998 and another island, Great St. James, in 2016. Little St. James is the one more commonly referred to as “Epstein island.” Epstein registered as a sex offender in the U.S. Virgin Islands in 2010, and he died by suicide in jail in 2019 while facing trial for sex crimes. In 2023, billionaire Stephen Deckoff purchased both islands for $60 million. Deckoff said he planned to build a resort on the islands. 

Snopes has previously covered several rumors about Trump’s interest in acquiring Greenland. 

Sources

Claim:

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted to social media, “Dear Oprah, Yes, you were overeating! For years! And it wasn’t some mystical ‘obesity gene’ puppeteering your fork. It was your choices.”

Rating:

Context

The post was authentic, but it was made by a “commentary account” that identified itself as having “no affiliation to the real RFKJR.”

Rumors spread online in late January 2026 that U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made a social media post about media mogul Oprah Winfrey’s eating habits.

Users on social media platforms, particularly on X (archived, archived, archived), claimed Kennedy criticized a recent statement made by Winfrey during a talk show appearance in which she discussed her previous misconceptions around struggles with her relationship to food and weight loss. Many users sharing the purported post celebrated it as authentically from Kennedy.

The full post (archived) in question read: 

Dear Oprah, yes, you were overeating! For years! And it wasn’t some mystical “obesity gene” puppeteering your fork. It was your choices. Stop selling surrender as science. Our kids deserve the truth that real change starts with personal accountability, not excuses. MAHA

“MAHA” referred to Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” HHS slogan. 

Dear Oprah,

Yes, you were overeating! 

For years!

And it wasn’t some mystical “obesity gene” puppeteering your fork. 

It was your choices.

Stop selling surrender as science.

Our kids deserve the truth that real change starts with personal accountability, not excuses.

MAHA https://t.co/eVO50kimeg

— ⁿᵉʷˢ Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (@RobertKennedyJc) January 15, 2026

The post came from an X user whose account was clearly labeled a “commentary account” and stated in its bio, “MAHA News/No affiliation to the real RFKJR.” Therefore, we have rated this claim as being incorrectly attributed to Kennedy. 

A search of Kennedy’s official HHS Secretary X account, his personal X account and the HHS account returned no results for the post criticizing Winfrey. 

The post was made in response to Winfrey’s Jan. 14, 2026, appearance on “The View” in which she discussed her history struggling with her weight and dieting. The interview is viewable on YouTube and Winfrey’s comments can be viewed around the 3:20 time stamp. She said: 

All these years, I thought I was overeating. I was standing there with all the food noise — what I ate, what I should eat, how many calories was that, how long is it gonna take. I thought that that was because of me and my fault. Now I understand that if you carry the obesity gene, if that is what you have, that is what makes you overeat. You don’t overeat and become obese. Obesity causes you to overeat. Obesity causes you to have all of that food noise. And what the GLP-1s have done for me, and I know a number of other people, is to quiet that noise. 

Winfrey’s mention of “GLP-1s” referred to medications such as Ozempic, which Winfrey started taking in 2023 according to a feature in People magazine. Winfrey’s comments to People mirrored what she said on “The View”: “Obesity is a disease. It’s not about willpower — it’s about the brain.”

In 2024, The Associated Press reported Winfrey was leaving the board of dieting company Weight Watchers, a position she held since 2015. During a March 15, 2024 appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” viewable on YouTube, Winfrey said she left Weight Watchers because she “did not want the appearance of any conflict of interest.” She added, “I resigned from the board and I donated all my shares to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.”

Claim:

Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts 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:

In January 2026, online users shared a rumor claiming Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts established the Renee Good Hope Scholarship Fund. Users’ posts claimed the NFL’s Super Bowl LIX MVP kickstarted the fund himself, contributing $300,000 of his own money.

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

For example, on Jan. 20, a user managing the NFL Pulse Facebook page posted (archived) an image collage of three pictures allegedly showing Hurts hugging Good’s 6-year-old son on a football field, Good holding her son in front of a body of water and Hurts walking inside a football stadium. The post’s text claimed Good’s killing inspired Hurts 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 NFL Pulse Facebook page to ask about the fictional stories and AI-generated content displayed on the feed, as well as the Philadelphia Eagles to request an official statement, and will update this story if we receive more information.

Ad-filled articles, AI and glurge

The NFL Pulse Facebook post (archived) — as well as other Facebook posts 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 NFL Pulse post redirected to an article on on such untrustworthy website.

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

Regarding the fake, AI-generated photo of Hurts holding Good’s son, the most evident sign of AI — aside from the misspelling of “Eagles” as “Eaglees” — was the reality that sports and standard news outlets would have very widely publicized the moment, had the meeting between the quarterback and young boy truly taken place.

The NFL Pulse Facebook post’s text, presented in its entirety later in this article, featured over-dramatic wording common with AI tools. For example, one part of the post read, “This was not charity for attention. It was an act of remembrance, of dignity, and of deep human empathy — a reminder that even in the aftermath of violence and loss, 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.

The person or people who authored the story about Hurts 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 NFL Pulse Facebook post’s claims

For readers interested in the story told in the NFL Pulse Facebook post, the post presented the made-up tale as follows:

Jalen Hurts has officially established The Renee Good Hope Scholarship Fund, personally committing an initial $300,000 donation to honor the life of Renee Nicole Good — a mother whose story ended in tragedy after she was killed in Minneapolis, a loss that left an entire community grieving.

But this gesture goes far beyond a financial contribution.

Jalen Hurts founded the scholarship fund himself to ensure that Renee’s 6-year-old son will receive full educational support from elementary school through college — including tuition, books, tutoring, and opportunities for personal development. Alongside the financial commitment, Jalen also dedicated his voice, his platform, and his heart to a child now facing a world without his mother.

This was not charity for attention. It was an act of remembrance, of dignity, and of deep human empathy — a reminder that even in the aftermath of violence and loss, compassion can still speak louder than silence.

Across the nation, many were moved not by the amount of money pledged, but by the meaning behind Jalen’s decision: a promise that Renee Nicole Good’s life mattered, and that her son’s future will be protected, supported, and filled with hope.

For further reading, we previously reported about the time tech billionaire Elon Musk deleted a post supporting the Eagles supporting the Eagles after they lost the 2023 Super Bowl LVII.

In a Jan. 22, 2026, Truth Social post (screenshot), U.S. President Donald Trump claimed Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., was “worth over $30 Million Dollars.” 

“There is no way such wealth could have been accumulated, legally, while being paid the salary of a politician,” Trump wrote. “She should be investigated for Financial and Political Crimes, and that investigation should start, NOW!” 

Trump’s comments came shortly after the New York Post, a conservative tabloid whose reporting has previously spread unverified and misleading claims examined by Snopes, claimed the House Oversight Committee was conducting a probe into Omar’s finances. 

Similar rumors about Omar’s net worth have circulated online since late 2025, including allegations that her net worth grew from a negative amount to $30 million since she took office in 2019. 

Similar iterations of these claims circulated on X, Facebook and in conservative tabloids like the New York Post and the Daily Mail, while a Snopes reader contacted us to ask if Omar’s “stunning spike in net worth” could be attributed to her “husband’s connection to a winery” or if there was more to the story.

While these numbers were somewhat based in legitimate documents, this claim requires context. Omar did have a negative net worth in 2019, according to her financial disclosure filing for that year. Furthermore, her 2024 financial disclosure, filed in May 2025, listed millions in assets — but those assets represented estimated valuations for businesses run in part by her husband, political consultant and entrepreneur Timothy Mynett, whom she married in 2020. 

Omar’s financial reports did not list a single number for each of her assets and liabilities, instead offering a wide estimated range for each listed monetary item, as is expected from filers. Federal law also did not require members of Congress to disclose certain types of financial assets as of this writing. 

Given that we did not have a definitive idea of her exact net worth and the Facebook post did not specify whether it was referencing her individual or household net worth, we have not rated this claim. 

In an emailed statement, Omar’s office called the claim “inaccurate” and a “right-wing smear campaign.” 

“If reporters actually read the financial disclosure, they would clearly see that the income that was received did not exceed $15,000. The value range listed for the assets reflects the full cost assessment of the businesses, in which her husband is one of several partners, and does not reflect her husband’s individual share,” the statement said.

Omar also addressed the allegations in a TikTok video posted on Sept. 3, 2025, in which she pointed out that the income she and her husband actually received was minimal. “Keep wishing millions into existence so I could pay off these student loans,” the caption of her TikTok joked.

Here’s what we know about the representative’s finances:

Omar’s financial disclosure for 2019, filed on Aug. 13, 2020, showed a single asset: a retirement account, valued at $1,001 to $15,000. She also listed only one liability: student loan debt incurred in October 2005, estimated between $15,001 and $50,000. 

In her 2024 report, filed on May 14, 2025, Omar listed six assets and two liabilities. Of her assets, she had anywhere from $1,001 to $15,000 in interest coming from her congressional savings account. In addition, she maintained three different retirement investment accounts, with a total estimated value ranging between $17,003 and $80,000. 

The majority of value from the listed assets came from two businesses run by Mynett, her husband, and were thus labeled as “Partnership Income.” Omar’s filing valued Mynett’s winery, eSt Cru Wines, at about $1 million to $5 million. Mynett’s venture capital management company, Rose Lake Capital, was valued between $5 million and $25 million. Mynett co-founded eSt Cru Wines in 2020 alongside longtime business partner William Hailer, who was listed as CEO on the company’s initial business license. Rose Lake Capital’s website lists three other partners aside from Mynett.

In addition, Omar reported $15,001 to $50,000 in student loan debt and $15,001 to $50,000 in credit card debt. 

In other words, based on her financial disclosure forms, Omar estimated her overall household net worth as ranging between approximately $6 million and $30 million — but her individual net worth as anywhere between negative $82,000 and positive $65,000. However, this assumes that Mynett owns his businesses outright, rather than in partnership. (Snopes reached the first figure by subtracting her maximum liabilities from her minimum assets; we reached the second figure by subtracting her minimum liabilities from her maximum assets).

Aside from what Omar included in her financial disclosures, she also would have received her annual $174,000 salary as a member of Congress, an amount that has not changed since 2009, according to an August 2025 Congressional Research Service report (see “Compensation”). 

Snopes has previously fact-checked other rumors about various elected officials’ wealth, including a false claim that U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., became a multimillionaire after spending five years in Congress and an unproven assertion that Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s net worth increased from $500,000 to $4.6 million since becoming a senator. 

Claim:

U.S. Vice President JD Vance said: “If Canada really is as independent from the U.S. as they claim they’d have their own currency. And anthem. And flag.”

Rating:

In late January 2026, social media users shared a quote in which U.S. Vice President JD Vance allegedly said: “If Canada really is as independent from the US as they claim, they’d have their own currency. And anthem. And flag.”

The purported remark spread online after President Donald Trump criticized Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. 

Vance’s alleged quote appeared on X, Facebook and Bluesky, while Snopes readers searched our website for examples of the vice president making the comments. For example, one Facebook user wrote:

To underline Trump’s brilliant and rambling display of ignorance on the world stage at Davos, and not to be outdone by his beloved leader, JD Vance has excelled with his latest display of brilliance.

JD Vance said recently:

“if Canada really is as independent from the US as they claim, they’d have their own currency. And anthem. And flag.”

These are the ‘leaders’ of the modern world? Well, they may be leaders of something, but one can’t help wondering who let them off their leash.

In short, Vance never said those words. The quote was fabricated and originated from a Threads account describing its content as satirical in nature. As such, this claim originated as satire.

The Threads account, @theoutandabouter, posted the satirical quote on Jan. 22, 2026 (archived). The account’s bio read: “Satire page that became redundant due to *gestures expansively. Now a full-time expansive gesturing page.”

A Google News search (archived) using key words from the fake quote uncovered no examples of any news media outlets reporting on Vance making such a statement, which would have likely been the case if it were true.

The rumor emerged after Carney delivered a speech at Davos condemning coercion by world powers without naming the U.S. In response, Trump said in his Davos speech: “Canada lives because of the United States.” Later, Carney responded (at 25:48): “Canada doesn’t live because of the United States. Canada thrives because we are Canadian.”

Trump then revoked his invitation to Carney to join the U.S. president’s Board of Peace that would oversee the reconstruction of Gaza. 

Snopes has covered such satirical fake stories before, including the claim that Denmark renamed Greenland “Epstein Island” to stop Trump from talking about it and the rumor that Vance said Labor Day should be a celebration of “women who go through labor.” 

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

Sources

Claim:

Photos authentically showed bruising on U.S. President Donald Trump’s left hand while he was attending the World Economic Forum summit in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 22, 2026.

Rating:

In January 2026, social media users discussed and shared photos allegedly showing bruising on U.S. President Donald Trump’s left hand during his attendance at the World Economic Forum summit in Davos, Switzerland.

Users shared several different photos specifically from Jan. 22 purportedly showing the bruise on Trump’s hand.

In short, those photos were real and were not manipulated with artificial-intelligence tools or other digital editing means.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Snopes via email, “At the Board of Peace event in Davos, President Trump hit his hand on the corner of the signing table, causing it to bruise.” (Trump held a charter-signing ceremony for the Board of Peace, an organization intended to oversee the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, in Davos on Jan. 22.) The White House also said Trump and his physicians previously tied his hand bruising to a daily aspirin regimen, and noted the bruising did not appear quite so visible on the following day.

On Air Force One on Jan. 22, Trump answered a reporter’s question regarding the bruising with a similar explanation. He said, in part, “My hand, I clipped it on the table. So I put a little, what do they call it? Cream on it. But I clipped it. I would say take aspirin if you like your heart but don’t take aspirin if you don’t like a little bruising.”

In July 2025, The Associated Press reported Leavitt said the White House medical unit conducted tests on Trump after noticing “mild swelling” in his lower legs. Doctors found Trump has chronic venous insufficiency, a condition common in older adults that causes blood to pool in the veins. She also addressed bruising on one of Trump’s hands, tying it to “frequent handshaking and the use of aspirin.” The AP report said Trump takes aspirin to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Snopes previously reported about bruising on Trump’s other hand — his right one — in March 2025. At the time, Leavitt tied the bruise to Trump “constantly working and shaking hands all day every day.” Trump told Time magazine much the same in December 2024.

Authentic images of Trump’s hand bruise in Davos

The Getty Images media-licensing website hosted numerous professional photos showing Trump’s hand bruise during his time in Davos. The bruise did not visibly appear in a Jan. 21 Getty Images photo but did show up on Jan. 22.

For example, on Jan. 22, various photos displayed differing angles including Trump’s left hand with the dark bruising. Other pictures offered a closer look, including these two photos captured by Getty Images photographer Chip Somodevilla:

(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

A Jan. 23 photo from a different photographer provided a glimpse of Trump’s left hand on the day following the bruise photos, showing pale skin rather than dark bruising — which could be due to makeup and/or the bruise naturally becoming less visible.

For further reading, we recommend our March 2025 report looking into some of the earlier bruising rumors regarding Trump’s hands.

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.

Rating:

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.

After the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) launched a sweeping immigration enforcement crackdown in Minnesota in December 2025, rumors spread on social media about the Democratic state’s allegedly small population of immigrants living in the country illegally compared to other states. 

Posts online claimed 130,000 people without legal immigration status lived in Minnesota, as opposed to 2.1 million in Texas and 1.6 million in Florida. These statistics, which Snopes readers asked us to verify, spread on 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.

In late January 2026, a rumor spread that Barron Trump, the youngest son of U.S. President Donald Trump, may have saved a woman’s life in London. As he talked to her over FaceTime, Apple’s video calling app, he saw a man attack her and called the U.K.’s emergency service, 999, according to online claims. 

For example, a post on X recounted the alleged incident, saying the man who attacked the woman was her ex-boyfriend (archived):

NEW: Barron Trump is being credited with saving a woman’s life after she was being attacked by her ex-boyfriend in the UK, according to Metro.

The revelation came from the woman, who told a London court that Barron Trump’s quick thinking saved her life.

According to the report, 22-year-old Matvei Rumianstev became jealous of his girlfriend’s friendship with Barron and started assaulting her.

Barron reportedly picked up a FaceTime call to see Rumianstev allegedly beating his friend.

Barron then jumped into action and called UK police at ‘999’ to tell operators that his friend was being assaulted.

The claim further appeared on X and Facebook, with the latter post referring to Trump as a hero. Meanwhile, Snopes readers searched the website seeking to confirm the veracity of the rumor.

In addition, news outlets in the U.K. and elsewhere reported on the alleged incident, including tabloids — such as The Daily Mail, The Mirror and The Sun — and reputable outlets — such as BBC News, The Guardian, CNN, Sky News and The Independent. 

All reports said a recording of Trump calling emergency services in the U.K. was part of the evidence brought against Matvei Rumiantsev, a Russian man standing trial for charges that included rape and assault at the Snaresbrook Crown Court in East London. 

Snopes confirmed hearings involving Rumiantsev took place in Court 1 at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Jan. 20, 21 and 22, 2026, per a calendar of court hearings. In addition, we contacted the prosecutor in the case, Serena Gates, and Sasha Wass, the barrister reportedly defending Rumiantsev, asking to confirm that the evidence in the trial included a recording of Trump seeking help for the woman. We will update this report should they respond. 

Despite these details, Snopes could not independently see or hear the evidence of the case. As such, we have left the claim unrated.

According to the most reliable news publications, Trump called 999, the U.K. emergency number, at 2:23 a.m. local time, saying he had witnessed a female friend being attacked as he called her using FaceTime. The event reportedly took place on Jan. 18, 2025, two days before Trump’s father took office for the second time.

Rumiantsev had allegedly become jealous because of the woman’s friendship with Trump, reports said. 

Rumiantsev is reportedly accused of two counts of rape as well as intentional strangulation, perverting the course of justice, assault and actual bodily harm, all of which news reports say he denies.

For further reading, Snopes investigated a claim that Trump made $400,000 betting on the capture of Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro.

Claim:

As of late 2025, NASA had confirmed the existence of a temporary second moon that would remain in orbit next to Earth until 2083.

Rating:

What’s True

Astronomers discovered a “quasi-satellite” of Earth, also known as a “quasi-moon,” dubbed 2025 PN7 in 2025. NASA told Snopes that 2025 PN7 has been in its current configuration “since at least the past 70 years and will remain so for another 60 years.”

What’s False

However, a quasi-satellite is not a true moon, since it orbits the Sun rather than a planet. Therefore, it’s misleading to call 2025 PN7 a “second moon.”

Rumors that Earth had picked up a new companion in the form of a so-called “second moon” began spreading online in late December 2025 and continued to light up social media into the new year.

Amateur astronomers took to social media platforms such as X (archived, archived) to share their excitement over the purported discovery, with some users claiming that NASA “has confirmed that Earth will temporarily have a ‘second moon.’” 

(@forallcurious via X)

The fantastical nature of the claim led Snopes readers to email us asking for clarification about Earth’s alleged temporary additional moon.

The claim that Earth had a so-called temporary “second moon” was a misleading portrayal of an authentic discovery. Therefore, we’ve rated this claim as a mixture of true and false information. 

It is true that astronomers discovered “a relatively short-lived quasi-satellite of Earth” and dubbed it 2025 PN7, according to a paper published by the American Astronomical Society in September 2025, which also mentioned the existence of six other known quasi-satellites, also called “quasi-moons,” currently orbiting alongside Earth.   

The Pan-STARRS observatory in Hawaii first clocked 2025 PN7 on Aug. 2, 2025, a NASA spokesperson told Snopes via email. Major news outlets, including CNN, ABC News, Yahoo, Smithsonian Magazine, The New York Times and Northeastern University’s Northeastern Global News, also reported the discovery. 

It would be misleading to call 2025 PN7 a “second moon,” however, and there is no evidence that NASA “confirmed” as much, despite social media posts’ claims. 2025 PN7 was searchable through NASA’s Small-Body Database Lookup, which displayed scientific data of the object. 

NASA told Snopes via email that 2025 PN7 is an asteroid and a “quasi-moon,” and explained how these objects differ from true moons. “Unlike a moon a quasi-moon is not gravitationally bound to Earth but follows an orbit around the Sun that makes it linger near Earth for an extended period of time,” the NASA spokesperson said. 

In other words, quasi-moons orbit the Sun, while moons orbit a planet — like Earth’s moon. Therefore, claims that 2025 PN7 is a “second moon” are misleading.

The paper published by AAS added, “Quasi-satellites are in a resonant orbit but are not gravitationally bound to Earth, allowing for more sustained, though unbound, proximity; while mini-moons are characterized by temporary gravitational captures by Earth, meaning they are gravitationally bound, albeit for a limited time.”

The length of time for which the asteroid has been in step with Earth’s orbit did not appear in the NASA database nor the AAS paper, but NASA told Snopes, “2025 PN7 has been in this configuration since at least the past 70 years and will remain so for another 60 years.”

NASA’s timeline matched the information in a New York Times report, which included an interview with Carlos de la Fuente Marcos, a researcher at Complutense University of Madrid and co-author of the AAS paper. The Times wrote that 2025 PN7 “seems to have shifted into its quasi-moon orbit in 1957 — just in time to witness the launch of Sputnik 1, Earth’s first artificial satellite.” The report also suggested that 2025 PN7 would be in step with Earth’s orbit for another 60 years before moving elsewhere.

“These asteroids are relatively easy to access for unmanned missions and can be used to test planetary exploration technologies with a relatively modest investment,” CNN quoted de la Fuente Marcos as saying, emphasizing the importance of such a discovery. 

But readers can rest easy knowing astronomers also confirmed that 2025 PN7 — and quasi-satellites in general — pose no threat to Earth. According to de la Fuente Marcos, the closest distance to Earth 2025 PN7 reached during its orbit was 186,000 miles. 

For comparison, the Moon is “an average of 238,855 miles” from Earth, according to NASA.

In sum, it is true that astronomers discovered a quasi-satellite, or “quasi-moon,” that will keep pace with Earth’s orbit for the next 60 years or so, but calling it a “second moon” is misleading at best. 

Sources

Claim:

A series of photos shared online in January 2026 authentically showed Victoria Beckham dancing inappropriately during her son Brooklyn Beckham’s wedding to Nicola Peltz.

Rating:

In January 2026, Brooklyn Beckham, the son of former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham and retired English soccer star David Beckham, reportedly published a bombshell statement on Instagram, appearing to publicly break ties with his famous family.

The younger Beckham leveled several accusations against his family — particularly his mother, Victoria — including a claim that the former pop star and fashion designer “hijacked” his first dance at his 2022 wedding to Nicola Peltz, daughter of billionaire Nelson Peltz. 

According to the British tabloid The Sun, which published Brooklyn Beckham’s statement in full after his post expired on Instagram, he wrote:

My mum hijacked my first dance with my wife, which had been planned weeks in advance to a romantic love song. In front of our 500 wedding guests, Marc Anthony called me to the stage, where in the schedule was planned to be my romantic dance with my wife but instead my mum was waiting to dance with me instead. She danced very inappropriately on me in front of everyone. I’ve never felt more uncomfortable or humiliated in my entire life.

The quote from Beckham’s reported statement also appeared in screenshots from his Instagram Stories shared (archived) by British journalist Victoria Derbyshire. Stories are temporary Instagram posts that usually disappear after 24 hours.

Reuters and the Associated Press also reported parts of Beckham’s statement.

In the days following the reported statement, social media users sought photographic or video evidence of Victoria Beckham’s alleged inappropriate dance. Some users shared (archived) a series of photos claiming to show Victoria Beckham, Brooklyn Beckham and Peltz, with the groom’s mother striking various dance poses in front of the newlyweds.

In short, the images were fake. The user who created them appeared to have used at least one authentic photo of Beckham and Peltz and digitally composited Victoria Beckham in various dance poses, likely with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Other images of Brooklyn Beckham and Peltz, including one that appears to show Peltz gasping in surprise at Victoria Beckham’s dancing, also appeared to have been altered using AI. 

Reverse image searches did not return any results for a photo resembling the scene from Brooklyn Beckham and Peltz’s wedding.

According to Google’s Gemini chatbot, the images also contained SynthID, Google’s watermark for content produced by its AI tools. Gemini wrote about the photos:

All or part of these images were made with Google AI. Each of the six images you’ve shared contains a SynthID digital watermark, which is used to identify content generated or edited by Google’s AI tools.

Hey Reilly, a self-described designer, artist and creative director whose logo appeared on the photos, posted (archived) the images on Facebook on Jan. 20, 2026, and wrote: “I mean, I don’t know about you, but after a few wedding sherries I’m absolutely first on the dance floor, busting moves I didn’t know I had.” One of the many hashtags on the post was “#Ai.” 

Hey Reilly’s post appeared to be among the earliest instances of the images circulating online, with other widely shared posts circulating after theirs.

We reached out to Hey Reilly to confirm that they created the images using Google’s AI tools and await a reply. 

According to a 2022 Vogue report citing a guest who reportedly attended the wedding, Brooklyn Beckham and Peltz had their first dance to “Only Fools Rush In,” performed by South African artist Lloyiso. The report did not describe any inappropriate dancing by Beckham’s mother or other guests. Snopes could not independently verify Beckham’s claim that his mother “hijacked” his first dance or whether her alleged actions were inappropriate. 

Beckham parents silent after son’s statement

Neither of Brooklyn Beckham’s parents had publicly addressed his reported accusations at the time of this writing.

In the lengthy reported statement, Beckham claimed his parents “controlled narratives” about the family in the press and placed “countless lies in the media, mostly at the expense of innocent people, to preserve their own facade.”

Beckham also accused his parents of “trying endlessly” to ruin his relationship with Peltz, writing that Victoria Beckham allegedly pulled out of designing Peltz’s dress “in the eleventh hour,” and “repeatedly invited women from my past into our lives in ways that were clearly intended to make us both uncomfortable.”

On Jan. 20, 2026, the day after Beckham released his statement, David Beckham appeared to ignore a Sky News reporter’s questions in Davos, Switzerland, about whether he had a message for his son or was “disappointed” that the statement had aired “family business” in public.

Speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box program about children and social media that same day, the elder Beckham said:

Children make mistakes. Children are allowed to make mistakes, that’s how they learn. So, that’s what I’ve tried to teach my kids but, you know, you have to sometimes let them make those mistakes as well.

David Beckham did not name Brooklyn or any of his other children — Romeo, Cruz and Harper — during the appearance.

At the time of this writing, it appeared unlikely that photos or videos of the alleged dance would ever be made public.

According to a report by tabloid news outlet TMZ, the wedding guests had their phones confiscated and the wedding videographer reportedly uploaded their footage “directly to a computer accessible only to Brooklyn and Nicola and, per contract, was required to wipe all copies and sign an NDA.” 

Victoria Beckham was reportedly the only guest allowed to keep her phone. It was unclear whether she recorded the alleged inappropriate dance.

A rumor that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement offered “rewards” to agents for making arrests, even if those arrested are released, circulated online in mid-January 2026. 

The rumor spread on social media platforms including X (archived), Facebook (archived) and YouTube, leading to an influx of emails from Snopes readers asking for the truth behind the claim. Some readers specified they’d heard of as much as $3,000 being offered in exchange for each arrest. 

The claim spread as ICE’s presence in Minneapolis continued to spur on protests in the wake of an agent’s fatal shooting of Renee Good on Jan. 7, 2026. 

Reporting from the WSJ covers the ICE incentive structure:

-ICE agents get additional rewards based on their arrests

-Those rewards count even if the person is RELEASED without chargeshttps://t.co/YwbTZlSmRx

— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) January 18, 2026

Snopes could not independently verify the claim that ICE agents receive a monetary bonus or other incentives for meeting arrest quotas, so we have left this claim unrated. A spokesperson for DHS, the department that oversees ICE, told Snopes via email that “this policy has never and never was in effect,” and ICE did not respond to Snopes’ inquiries. 

The rumor originated with a Jan. 17, 2026, report from The Wall Street Journal about ICE’s actions in Minneapolis. 

The WSJ reported that ICE agents “are under pressure from daily arrest quotas that leadership has set at 3,000 a day across the country — the number it would take to reach one million arrests in a year,” and that “officers are rewarded for making arrests, even if the immigrants they take in are later released.” 

The report also said ICE has “never come close” to reaching that daily quota. 

One of the most popular social media posts sharing the claim that ICE offers were receiving rewards for arrests also included a link to the WSJ article. The readers who inquired about a “$3,000 bonus for each arrest” potentially conflated the 3,000-arrest quota with a specific dollar amount, though the WSJ piece did not specify any amount or even whether the alleged rewards were monetary.

What ICE recruitment material says

Recruitment material for ICE available online does not state anything about rewards or bonuses for arrests.  

A website breaking down ICE’s employment benefits, including health care, suicide prevention and retirement options, did not mention any bonus structure or reward system for meeting arrest quotas. 

A Dec. 18, 2025, statement from DHS touting its “most successful federal law enforcement agency recruitment campaign in American history” claimed the agency had hired “11,751 law enforcement officers, criminal investigators, attorneys and mission support staff” since President Donald Trump began his second term in January 2025.

The statement mentioned some of the new benefits it rolled out to encourage applications, including signing bonuses and student loan forgiveness programs, but did not mention any bonuses or rewards for meeting arrest quotas.

In a September 2025 news release, DHS announced “reimbursement opportunities” for local law enforcement agencies that assist in ICE operations that would begin on Oct. 1, 2025. The announcement said the agency would “fully reimburse participating agencies” for the salaries and benefits of each eligible officer trained as part of its task force.

The statement did mention cooperating law enforcement agencies would be eligible for “quarterly monetary performance awards,” but said it was “based on the successful location of illegal aliens provided by ICE and overall assistance to further ICE’s mission to defend the Homeland.” 

The statement appeared to indicate that rewards would be handed out in tiers, with “$1,000 per eligible task force officer” should that agency track down “90 – 100%” of “illegal aliens provided by ICE,” with diminishing dollar amounts of $750 and $500 per eligible task force offer for success rates of 80-89% and 70-79%, respectively. 

It was unclear from the language provided whether these stipulations took into account the arrest quotas reportedly set by the Trump administration. We requested clarification in our messages to DHS and ICE and will update this article if we hear back. 

ICE’s statistics page featured a tool to search the agency’s arrest and detainment numbers, but the data has not been updated since January 2025, before Trump began his second term and increased ICE’s activity and recruitment. 

According to a December 2025 report from Axios, ICE “has been arresting roughly 1,100 people per day in recent weeks, according to government data released via a Freedom of Information Act request from the Deportation Data Project” and noted that the agency averaged 821 arrests from Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025, through Oct. 15 of that year.

Axios reported that DHS claimed the number was closer to “1,800 people a day” over that span.

Sources

In January 2026, as U.S. President Donald Trump made threats about his country taking control of Greenland, he repeated a claim to supposedly bolster his administration’s credibility in international affairs: that he had supposedly “stopped” multiple wars since the start of his second presidential term.

For instance, on Jan. 21, 2026, while speaking to a crowd at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he asserted he had “settled eight wars plus.”

Trump has made variations of the claim over months, citing six, seven or eight wars that he supposedly “ended.”

In September 2025, for instance, he said in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly that he had “ended 7 wars.” On the same day, the State Department posted a graphic on social media listing the conflicts Trump had purportedly ended.

(X user @StateDept)

In August 2025, during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy while calling for an end to the Ukraine-Russia war, Trump said he had “ended” six wars. He made a similar claim in the days before the meeting, saying in an interview with Fox News, “I’ve solved six wars in six months” and repeating the claim during remarks in the Oval Office. And in July 2025, Trump said, “I’m averaging about a war a month” referring to the apparent wars he had helped end. Many people online have disputed Trump’s claim. 

Snopes listed the conflicts Trump was referencing below and assessed his role in solving each of them. We found that while the United States did play a part in brokering a form of a ceasefire in some cases, in most instances these issues were not permanently “solved” as Trump claimed. His part in brokering peace was also disputed by some of the countries involved. Furthermore, most of these ongoing conflicts were not formally declared as “wars” by the countries involved. 

Trump and his team at various times referred to the following seven conflicts: Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, India and Pakistan, Iran and Israel, Cambodia and Thailand, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Serbia and Kosovo, and Egypt and Ethiopia.

Some of the conflicts he was referring to also occurred during his first term. A White House spokesperson told us over email in August 2025:

President Trump is right – he cemented his role as Peacemaker-in-Chief by resolving conflicts around the world. Now, he has brought President Putin to the table for a peace deal. European leaders recognize that after three years of killing and deadlock under weak Joe Biden, there has been more progress towards peace than ever before because of this President’s leadership.

As we have previously reported, on occasion, journalists and experts refer to a conflict as a war, even if the countries have not officially declared it as such. The Merriam-Webster definition of war includes any “open and declared armed hostile conflict between states and nations.” The Associated Press style guideline, which is considered the standard for journalistic language, “considers the number of casualties, the intensity of fighting, the involvement of each party, and what each country was calling the conflict” to determine whether it describes a conflict as war. AP thus applied this standard to the Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-Hamas war. 

The White House also confirmed to us in August 2025 that Trump was referring to the subsequent list of countries: The Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, India and Pakistan, Iran and Israel, Cambodia and Thailand, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Serbia and Kosovo, and Ethiopia and Egypt.

As far as Trump’s comment in Davos regarding an eighth war, it seems he was referencing the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal that he brokered in October 2025. We reached out to the White House to confirm this was the case, and will update this post accordingly. 

Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda

Since the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda have been mired in a 30-year conflict involving numerous armed groups, including the M23 rebels who escalated fighting in early 2025. Rwanda is widely believed to be backing these rebels and experts have said Rwandan troops were fighting alongside them. We should note that while the DRC called some of the M23 rebels actions a “declaration of war” in January 2025, the country of Rwanda did not declare such a war itself.

On June 27, 2025, Rwanda and the DRC signed what Trump called a “peace deal,” which he said came with mineral rights for the U.S. The deal was signed between the two countries but not with the M23 rebels. Trump called the deal “a glorious triumph for the cause of peace.”

However, despite Trump’s claims, violence continued in the region. A Human Rights Watch report said M23 killed around 140 civilians in July alone. Both the DRC and M23 rebels accused each other of violating the U.S.-mediated ceasefire agreement. 

M23 walked away from peace talks with the DRC in mid-August, and even said its representatives were not present in Qatar for the resumption of negotiations and to sign a peace deal for a more permanent ceasefire. Trump’s claim to broker peace in this case is widely off the mark. 

India and Pakistan

The two South Asian countries have long fought over the territory of Kashmir and faced their latest conflict after an April 2025 attack by armed groups that killed 26 people in Indian-administered Kashmir. India accused Pakistan of being behind the attack, which Pakistan denied. In May 2025, Indian jets bombed what the Indian government called “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan. Pakistan retaliated, leading to four days of back-and-forth strikes with fighter jets, missiles and drones. Neither country has officially declared war in many of their major conflicts including this one. 

Trump claimed the two countries agreed to a “full and immediate ceasefire” after talks mediated by the U.S. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif thanked Trump “for his leadership and proactive role for peace in the region.” However, India’s foreign ministry said Trump played no role in mediation: “Talks for ceasing military action happened directly between India and Pakistan through existing military channels, and on the insistence of Pakistan. Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi emphasised that India has not accepted mediation in the past and will never do.”

In June 2025, Trump hosted Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff Gen. Asim Munir — considered to be the most powerful figure in Pakistan — at the White House, and Munir reportedly called for Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

While Pakistan praised the U.S. for its mediation efforts, India denied U.S. involvement, leaving the full extent of Trump’s role in question.

Iran and Israel

In mid-June 2025, Israel launched a surprise attack on a range of targets in Iran, sparking a barrage of missile attacks from Iran into Israel. The U.S. entered the conflict on June 21, with Trump authorizing airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran retaliated on June 23 by firing missiles at a U.S. airbase in Qatar. However, soon after, Trump announced a ceasefire between Iran and Israel on his Truth Social account. Iran called Israel’s attack a “declaration of war” and numerous experts referred to the conflict as a war. 

Trump can be credited with pressuring both Israel and Iran to stop hostilities, though the U.S. was an active combatant in the hostilities. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the country stopped further attacks on Iran after a call with Trump. However, in late June 2025, Israel said that despite a ceasefire it could still strike Iran to counter any new threats.

Experts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank said Trump’s decision to carry out a focused attack on Iran was probably the “right call” because Iranian leadership was cautious and would focus on survival rather than all-out retaliation when faced with U.S. pressure. However, Iran and Israel’s rhetoric suggests another war could break out again any day.

While Trump did pressure the countries to stand down, the conflict itself is not over.

Cambodia and Thailand

In late July 2025, following several months of tension, border clashes broke out between Thailand and Cambodia. The Southeast Asian countries have made competing territorial claims for years. The latest skirmishes erupted months after a Cambodian soldier was killed, and just days after a landmine exploded and killed five Thai soldiers. We should note, neither Cambodia nor Thailand officially declared war against each other over the border conflict, as of this writing. 

After Trump exerted pressure on both countries by threatening their trade deals, the two sides met in Malaysia and agreed to an unconditional ceasefire. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet and Thai Acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai held a meeting alongside Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and shook hands at the end. Soon after, Trump wrote on social media, “I am proud to be the president of PEACE.”

Even though Trump pressured the two countries to agree to a ceasefire, the underlying conflict is still ongoing, including their competing claims over centuries-old Hindu temples along their borders.

Armenia and Azerbaijan

The two countries have been fighting since the 1980s, in a number of cross-border conflicts that left tens of thousands of people displaced or dead. In 2020, the countries engaged in a six-week war in which Azerbaijan retook large parts of the Nagorno-Karabakh territory, which was controlled for decades by ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia, finally taking it completely in 2023. Around 100,000 ethnic Armenians fled to Armenia as a result.

Russia considers the region to be within its sphere of influence, which is why an August 2025 Trump-brokered peace agreement was considered a victory for the U.S. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan both came to the White House to sign the treaty that would boost economic ties and begin normalization of relations. The treaty also included exclusive U.S. development rights to a transit corridor, dubbed the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” through the South Caucasus.

Iran has both welcomed the treaty and also criticized the transit corridor and threatened to block the project out of concern about a greater U.S. presence near Iranian borders. Russia cautiously welcomed the project but warned against more foreign interests in the region.

Aliyev and Pashinyan both praised Trump, saying he helped end the conflict and said they would nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize. Lasting peace in the region hinges on a range of factors including whether Russia continues to exert influence and over fears around Armenia and Azerbaijan’s longer history of failed negotiations.  

Serbia and Kosovo

The two countries have had territorial disputes since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, a declaration Serbia still does not recognize. However, Trump’s diplomatic efforts took place during a time when the countries were not fighting with each other. On June 27, 2025, Trump said Serbia and Kosovo were on the verge of war:

Serbia was — they were getting ready to go to war with a group. I won’t even mention, because it didn’t happen, we were able to stop it. But I have a friend in Serbia, and they said, “We’re going to go to war again.” And I won’t mention that it’s Kosovo, but it’s Kosovo. But they were going to have a big time war, and we stopped it. We stopped it because of trade. They want to trade with the United States and I said we don’t trade with people that go to war.

It is not clear what conflict Trump resolved in his second term as president. Kosovo’s President Vjosa Osmani appeared to support Trump’s statement that he averted a war, saying “we appreciate the role of President Trump as a peacemaker day and night for peace in the world.” However Serbia denied any claims that they were planning military action against Kosovo.

In 2020, during his first term, Trump brokered an economic normalization agreement between the two countries, dubbed The Washington Agreement. However, the two countries were not in active conflict at the time. Thus Trump’s claim to have averted war in this case is dubious at best.

Egypt and Ethiopia

Like Serbia and Kosovo, there was no war between these two countries; rather, there were ongoing tensions over a dam in the Nile River. In July 2025, Ethiopia finished constructing the controversial Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which Egypt has long opposed over concerns it would deplete its share of river water. Numerous negotiations between Egypt and Ethiopia over the years led to no agreement over the dam.

In March 2020, Trump attempted and failed to broker an agreement between the two countries. Ethiopia did not join talks with Egypt in Washington. In September 2020 Trump temporarily suspended some aid to Ethiopia over the lack of progress. In October 2020, Ethiopia even accused Trump of inciting war after he said Egypt would “blow up” the dam. 

In July 2025, Ethiopia denied Trump’s claim that the U.S. funded the construction of the dam. Trump has emphasized the importance of the Nile River to Egyptians, saying, “This dam represents life itself for the Egyptian people” and said he was trying to reach a deal. Egypt has largely welcomed Trump’s comments.

Even though the White House confirmed to us that this was a war Trump helped resolve in his first term, neither country has reached a deal, nor is there an open war taking place, making this particular claim suspect.

Israel and Hamas

The eighth war Trump referenced in January 2026 is likely between Israel and Hamas. We will update this post once we receive confirmation from the White House. 

In early October 2025, Trump announced that Israel and Hamas signed off on the first phase of a ceasefire deal proposed by the Trump administration, releasing aid into Gaza and commencing a hostage exchange process. That deal resulted in Hamas releasing all surviving hostages, and Israel releasing 250 prisoners and nearly 2,000 detainees it was holding without charges. 

Less than two weeks later, Israel launched a wave of strikes on Gaza, killing at least 40 Palestinians.

In December 2025, United Nations Deputy Special Coordinator Ramiz Alakbarov, who helps oversee peace talks in the Middle East, said the ceasefire was fragile amidst Gaza’s ongoing humanitarian crisis and Israel’s continuing attacks. The ceasefire was ongoing, with the second phase under way, as of January 2026. Israeli attacks on Gaza have continued.

According to the Associated Press, the success of Trump’s October 2025 deal depends on the reconstruction of Gaza, and whether Israel has improved relations with other Arab countries and Palestine can form path to independence. 

In other words, the results of Trump’s ceasefire deal may not be known for the foreseeable future.

In conclusion

Trump’s record of preventing wars over his first year of his second presidential term is mixed. Numerous parties have disputed his role in the events, and most of the deals he has brokered appear to be temporary solutions to long-standing issues. Trump has also been unable to resolve current crises between Russia and Ukraine, as well as stop Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza. As such, Trump’s claims are highly exaggerated. 

Sources