Tag: Snopes News

A claim (archived) circulated online in September 2026 that Danish officials played the song “Send in the Clowns” when U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived at the signing of a U.S.-Denmark-Greenland agreement.

The claim circulated after U.S. President Donald Trump, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen signed the deal, which sought to end months of diplomatic squabble over Greenland, in New York City on Sept. 22, 2026. 

For example, one Threads user wrote, “Listen, I’m not gonna say it’s perfection, but the Danish delegation having ‘Send in the Clowns’ playing on the playlist as Marco Rubio entered to sign Denmark/Greenland stuff is very, very well played.”

 

 

Other social media users shared the claim on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), X (archived), and Bluesky (archived). Some of those users posted a video that they claimed showed Rubio entering the room as “Send in the Clowns” played, suggesting Danish officials sought to embarrass or insult him. Snopes readers also contacted us about the claim.

Two separate live streams of the Sept. 22 signing event, which used two separate camera angles, showed that “Send in the Clowns” did play around the time Rubio and Greenland and Denmark’s Ministers of Foreign Affairs Múte B. Egede and Lars Løkke Rasmussen entered the conference room where the ceremony was held.

A spokesperson for the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs said via email on Sept. 22, 2026, “Denmark was not involved in selecting the music for the signing ceremony.” Snopes asked the White House whether its officials chose the pre-conference music and await a reply.

In the meantime, we leave this claim unrated.

What the streams showed

According to a livestream (archived) of the Sept. 22 signing event shared by MAGNO News, which said it provided “professionally licensed video content from accredited media providers,” “Send in the Clowns” played as attendees at the signing ceremony were finding their seats.

The song started at time code 9:59 in the stream. Rubio, Egede and Rasmussen entered the room around time code 10:59 as Collins sang, “Isn’t it bliss? Don’t you approve? One who keeps tearing around, One who can’t move. Where are the clowns? There ought to be clowns.”

At time code 11:18, the camera panned to Rasmussen as Collins sang, “There ought to be clowns.” 

Later, at time code 12:22, Collins sang, “But where are the clowns? Send in the clowns. Don’t bother, they’re here,” as the camera panned to Rubio and Rasmussen.

Finally, at time code 13:24, Collins sang, “But where are the clowns? There ought to be clowns. Well, maybe next year,” as the camera focused on Rubio and Rasmussen.

Another livestream (archived) uploaded to YouTube by British newspaper The Guardian also included Collins’ music.

“Send in the Clowns” started at time code 5:14 on the Guardian’s stream. Egede and Rubio entered the frame at time code 6:24 as Collins sang “Where are the clowns? There ought to be clowns.”

The song ended at time code 9:10, followed by the announcement and arrival of Trump, Frederiksen and Nielsen at time code 9:46.

Given the above, the choice of “Send in the Clowns” was likely coincidental or accidental. Officials for all three countries signing the deal were in frame while parts of the song that directly mentioned clowns played, meaning that if one delegation had chosen the song to mock another, it did not have the intended effect.

Additionally, Trump, Frederiksen and Nielsen entered the stage right after the song. Again, if one delegation had sought to call the head of another other a clown through Collins’ song, that did not have the intended effect because the heads of all three delegations appeared together.

Greenland deal averts diplomatic crisis

Trump, Frederiksen and Nielsen’s deal for Greenland followed months of threats by Trump to seize the Arctic island. Trump’s wish to gain control of Greenland, which is an autonomous territory of Denmark, threatened the integrity of NATO in January 2026 when his administration refused to rule out using military force. 

Both Denmark and the U.S. are NATO members. The alliance has an article that treats an attack on one member as an attack on all.

Negotiations for a new deal related to U.S. involvement in the island’s affairs began in January and concluded with the signing in September.

According to the Associated Press, the deal allows the U.S. to expand its military presence on Greenland, but affirms the island’s status as an autonomous territory of Denmark as well as Greenland’s right to self-determination.

It also notes that non-NATO countries cannot open military installations on the island. 

The Danish parliament will consider the deal, which can only come into force if that parliament approves it.

For further reading, Snopes has previously covered a number of rumors about Greenland.

In September 2026, a video posted by the conservative pundit Rob Smith appeared online claiming that Democrats were giving $20,000 in benefits to “illegals” in Chicago.

Snopes readers asked us to verify or disprove the claims made in the video, the latest in a long stretch of Republican-promoted rumors suggesting Democrats give large amounts of money or other benefits to immigrants living in the country without authorization. (Snopes fact-checked a version of that claim from the White House here). 

Oftentimes, as is the case here, such claims are accompanied by the idea that these payments are the first step in a Democratic-led plot to permanently control the federal government. 

The video presents its narrative without providing any additional evidence to support any of its claims, which are as follows:

1. Immigrants living in the country illegally receive $15,000 in food stamps from the government;
2. These immigrants receive $5,000 in cash from the government;
3. These immigrants receive free, government subsidized Wi-Fi;
4. The government covers these immigrants’ rent for two years;
5. Democrats give immigrants living in the country illegally these benefits as a sort of “bribe,” with the later goal of granting them the right to vote. The immigrants would then repay the favor by voting for Democrats in large numbers, effectively diluting the voting power of non-immigrant Americans and giving the party long-term control. 

We have refrained from rating this article because of the complexity of the claims in the video. Our research indicated that the first two claims were unfounded at best, while the third and fourth are exaggerated, though the fourth might have been the source behind the $15,000 figure. (The fifth claim is also unfounded, since it depends on the other four being true.)

We also noted that much of the rhetoric resembled common claims made during the last two years of President Joe Biden’s administration, when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott made a show of busing migrants entering the U.S. to cities like Chicago. Much of the reporting around these issues also came from that time, leading us to suspect that the interview took place in the lead-up to the 2024 election, rather than in 2026.

We were able to confirm the theory using a reverse image search. The original video first appeared on the Instagram (archived) and TikTok accounts of conservative social media personality Brooke Shirley in late August 2024. Shirley, the mother of conservative social media personality Nick Shirley, originally posted the video in the days following the 2024 Democratic National Convention, which was held in Chicago. She has reposted the video at least twice since then.

As part of reporting this story, we contacted the Illinois Housing Development Authority, which ran a program that paid some rent costs for immigrants legally seeking asylum, though not to the extent suggested in the video. Our research suggested that program ended in late 2023. Snopes contacted IHDA to confirm that the program was no longer active. Andrew Field, an agency spokesperson, told us it processed its final applications in June 2024.

We also contacted Smith seeking clarification on the time discrepancy, since his September 2026 video never mentioned that the interview originally took place two years prior. We also asked whether Smith believed the policies described in the interview were active in 2026, but had not heard back. 

Wealso attempted to confirm that the interview featured in the video, conducted with a woman who said she lived on Chicago’s south side, was real — if it was instead generated using AI tools, for instance, the person who generated it could make the woman say anything, and therefore the video would not be a reliable source of information. We were able to geolocate the interview’s location to Chicago’s Grant Park using the word “Roosevelt” on the building to the left. That fact, combined with the posting date of Brooke Shirley’s original video, strongly suggested that the video was not an AI fake or otherwise misleadingly edited. 

Next, we investigated the claims themselves. 

Immigrants did not get $15,000 in food stamps

Immigrants who are in the country without authorization have never been eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and the video’s assertion otherwise is not based on concrete evidence. 

SNAP eligibility is extended to some non-citizens, but there are strict requirements, which were made even more strict after the passage of the Trump administration’s much-touted “One Big Beautiful Bill” budget act in July 2025. 

The principal requirement is that an immigrant must have a permanent residency card and have lived in the U.S. for at least five years, or be under the age of 18. Prior to July 2025, however, there were exceptions for refugees and individuals granted asylum. Even before these exceptions were eliminated, however, the claim would still have been untrue. SNAP benefits are calculated using the number of individuals in a household (in 2024, for instance, a family of four could receive a maximum of $973 each month, or just over $11,500 per year, with money subtracted based on an individual’s household income. Immigration status does not factor into the calculation at all.

Immigrants are not getting $5,000 in cash

This claim also spread significantly around the time the video was originally shared.. It, too, is not based on any evidence. Snopes disproved a claim that immigrants got roughly $3,800 in 2017, and many prominent fact-checking organizations have disproved the claim that immigrants are getting $5,000 in cash or gift cards.

Furthermore, although exposing and cutting alleged wasteful government spending has been a major policy platform of the second Trump administration, there was no evidence the administration has identified or targeted programs matching the claims in the video.

Chicago has a free WiFi program … for families of students

It’s worth noting that many libraries in America, including the Chicago Public Library, offer on-site free WiFi and computer access to all patrons, regardless of immigration status.

However, we found that the city does offer a free home internet program that immigrants can access. The program is eligible for families of students enrolled in Chicago Public Schools who receive free or reduced meals, and there are no eligibility requirements based on immigration status. 

According to a city fact-sheet about the program, the internet access is valued at $10 per month — a drop in the bucket compared to the alleged $20,000 in benefits each immigrant allegedly receives. 

Chicago did pay some immigrants’ rent … for up to 6 months, or $15,000

Snopes found that in the fall of 2022, months after Greg Abbott’s busing program began, the state of Illinois did implement a program through the Illinois Housing Development Authority to cover the housing costs for the influx of migrants seeking asylum entering Chicago. (It should be noted that migrants are legally entitled to claim asylum, and therefore the description of these individuals as “illegal immigrants” is suspect at best).  The latest references to program online suggested that it expired in 2023. The IHDA confirmed that the program finished processing applications in June 2024 and is no longer operating.

However, contrary to the claim, this program did not cover rent for two years. Several outlets have separately investigated a similar claim about the government of Michigan, too. 

Instead, it covered a security deposit and rent for three months, with an optional extension for another three months, making six months in total. Applicants could receive a maximum of $15,000, which we suspect may have been the source of the food stamps figure.

According to an IHDA document detailing the program’s accomplishments, it gave $3.7 million in grants to 681 families by the beginning of 2023, and another $1.4 million went toward additional three-month extensions. The authority claimed households received an average of $6,369, which is significant, but still below the fictitious $15,000 in food stamps described previously. 

The program provided $53 million in rental assistance to 6,623 asylum seekers and families over the course of its lifespan, meaning that each successfully applicant received an average of just over $8,000.

One last note on this program: the IDHA’s program paid landlords directly wherever possible — the money for rental assistance offered through the program was not given to immigrants.

Conclusion

In sum, the claims were a combination of unfounded, outdated and exaggerated.

It is true that immigrants were eligible for some welfare programs in Chicago during the later years of Joe Biden’s presidency. However, the emergency housing program ended in 2024, while the additional restrictions on SNAP implemented by the Trump administration specifically bars refugees and asylum seekers — the individuals generally being incorrectly described as “illegal immigrants.” 

For more reading, we previously investigated a rumor that the government of Massachusetts gave $100 million to non-citizens.

Sources

Daniller, Andrew, et al. “Americans’ Evaluations of the Economy Remain Negative.” Pew Research Center, 23 July 2026, https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2026/07/23/americans-evaluations-of-the-economy-remain-negative/.

Peoples, Steve, et al. “Rising Gas Prices Frustrate Voters. Trump Says It’s an ‘Inexpensive Price to Pay’ for the Iran War.” Associated Press, 20 Sept. 2026, https://apnews.com/article/gas-prices-trump-midterms-affordability-iran-war-d2f5d5aa7ecc1f6d55d8f5759db03150.

“Trump Says Rising Gas Prices Are ‘A Very Small Price to Pay’ for the Iran War.” C-SPAN, 5 May 2026, https://www.c-span.org/clip/white-house-event/trump-says-rising-gas-prices-are-a-very-small-price-to-pay-for-the-iran-war/5199900.

WHAS11. “Trump Says High Gas Prices Are Small Price to Pay in Iran War.” YouTube, 19 Sept. 2026, https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=Sht7avONtoFxNddu&t=70&v=y67YN25DdA0&feature=youtu.be.

Claim:

Thirty-five Pennsylvania Republicans voted against a bill that guaranteed daily recess for children in the state.

Rating:

Context

It was unclear whether the Republicans who voted against House Bill 1505 did so specifically because of the recess provision or for other reasons.

In September 2026, a claim (archived) circulated online that 35 Pennsylvania Republicans voted against a bill that guaranteed daily recess for children in the state.

For example, the pro-Democratic X account @DemzDeliver wrote, “Democrats pass bill guaranteeing recess everyday to Pennsylvania students. 35 Republicans voted no.”

The account further spread the claim on Threads and Instagram (archived, archived). It also circulated on another left-leaning Facebook page. 

The claim was true. Thirty Pennsylvania Republicans in the House and five in the Senate voted against House Bill 1505, which, alongside other measures, included a section that made recess mandatory from kindergarten through fifth grade.

It was unclear whether the Republicans who voted against House Bill 1505 did so specifically because of the recess provision or for other reasons.

Rep. Scott Barger, who was the only representative to vote against the bill twice, told Snopes via a spokesperson that he voted against the bill because “the overall spending amount of the state budget was too high to be palatable to me, plus the 80 pages don’t actually contain meaningful reforms.” 

House Bill 1505, which Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro announced (archived) that he had signed into law on Sept. 6, 2026, contained a number of changes to the state’s Public School Code of 1949.

Shapiro wrote: 

Before this year, schools in Pennsylvania weren’t required to give students dedicated recess time so they could take a break from learning, get outside, and just be kids. Our latest state budget changes that.

The act added a new section about recess that read, in part (page 49):

Section 1512.2. Recess periods.–(a) a school entity shall provide at least thirty minutes of recess during each school day in full-day kindergarten through grade five and at least fifteen minutes of recess during each school day in half-day kindergarten

The bill went on to say that recess time should be separate from lunch time or physical education. It also specified that recess should be “provided outside” and should not “involve the use of electronic devices.”

History of the votes

The Pennsylvania House and Senate voted on the bill three times before it became law. 

On July 7, 2026, 202 out of 203 representatives in the state House voted in favor of the bill, sending it on to the state Senate. The lone “nay” vote came from Republican Rep. Scott Barger.

The Senate voted to pass the bill on July 12, 2026. During this vote, five Republicans voted against the bill. 

The bill then returned for a concurrence vote in the House on amendments made in the Senate. The House voted, also on July 12, to send the bill to Shapiro for his signature with the amendments from the Senate. Thirty Republicans, including Barger, voted against the bill at this vote, meaning a total of 35 Republicans had voted against the bill in both the House and Senate.

For further reading, Snopes has investigated a series of other rumors about public schools.

Breuninger, Kevin, and Dan Mangan. “Trump Says He’s Banning MS NOW, CNN and Politico From White House.” CNBC, 18 Sept. 2026, https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/18/trump-white-house-ban-msnow-cnn-politico.html. Accessed 22 Sept. 2026.

Forbes Breaking News. LIVE: President Trump Holds Public Event After Banning CNN, MSNOW, and Politico From the White House. YouTube, 21 Sept. 2026.

Gerstein, Josh, and Kyle Cheney. “News Outlets Trump Banned From White House Announce Lawsuit.” Politico, Politico, 21 Sept. 2026, https://www.politico.com/news/2026/09/21/news-outlets-trump-banned-from-white-house-announce-lawsuit-01085995. Accessed 22 Sept. 2026.

Trump, Donald. “Trump Announces CNN, MS NOW, Politico Removal from White House Press Corps.” Truth Social, 18 Sept. 2026, https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/117293599348325006. Accessed 22 Sept. 2026.

Claim:

Former U.S. President Barack Obama banned Fox News from White House press briefings.

Rating:

What’s True

Obama often criticized Fox News. He also did fewer interviews with Fox News and took fewer questions from its correspondents compared to other news networks. His administration also said it was willing to exclude Fox News from interviews. Some accused his administration of blocking the network’s access in one instance, but a spokesperson claimed it was a communication error and the administration backtracked.

What’s False

However, the Obama administration never outright blocked, banned or ejected Fox News reporters from press briefings.

In September 2026, U.S. President Donald Trump banned three major news outlets — CNN, MSNOW and Politico — from the White House. The outlets subsequently filed a lawsuit accusing the administration of violating the First Amendment. 

Soon after, former President Barack Obama condemned Trump’s ban and speculated about the consequences if he had banned Fox News during his administration. In response, some people online claimed Obama had retaliated against Fox News (archived) in a similar way during his first term. For example, television personality Piers Morgan wrote on X (archived), “Obama did ban Fox, and waged almost constant war against press freedom.” 

(X user @PiersMorgan)

As Snopes previously reported in 2018, while Obama criticized Fox News and snubbed the network’s requests for interviews, he never banned the network outright from the White House. As such, we rate this claim as mostly false. 

In October 2009, a New York Times report (archived) stated Obama’s Treasury Department attempted to exclude Fox News from a roundtable interview with the executive-pay czar Kenneth R. Feinberg. Major news networks were sharing a “pool” camera crew for these interviews. According to the report, other networks protested Fox’s exclusion. 

However, a 2009 Talking Points Memo report referred to the situation as a “miscommunication.” The report said:

TPMDC dug into it, and here’s what happened. Feinberg did a pen and pad with reporters to brief them on cutting executive compensation. TV correspondents, as they do with everything, asked to get the comments on camera. Treasury officials agreed and made a list of the networks who asked (Fox was not among them).

But logistically, all of the cameras could not get set up in time or with ease for the Feinberg interview, so they opted for a round robin where the networks use one pool camera. Treasury called the White House pool crew and gave them the list of the networks who’d asked for the interview.

The network pool crew noticed Fox wasn’t on the list, was told that they hadn’t asked and the crew said they needed to be included. Treasury called the White House and asked top Obama adviser Anita Dunn. Dunn said yes and Fox’s Major Garrett was among the correspondents to interview Feinberg last night.

A Treasury spokesperson told Talking Points Memo, “There was no plot to exclude Fox News, and they had the same interview that their competitors did. Much ado about absolutely nothing.” Fox News did conduct the interview with Feinberg. 

The Obama administration didn’t hold back in its criticism of Fox News in the aftermath of the controversy. When questioned by NBC News about the administration’s tone regarding Fox News, Obama said:

We’re going to take the media as it comes. And if media is operating basically as a talk radio format, then that’s one thing, and if it’s operating as a news outlet, then that’s another. But it’s not something I’m losing a lot of sleep over.

Obama spokesperson Josh Earnest reportedly admitted that the White House had demonstrated its “willingness to exclude Fox News” from interviews, but that it had not done so, according to Talking Points Memo. Earnest added, “The president and other high ranking officials and people like Ken Feinberg have done interviews with Fox in the past and will do them in the future.”

In a 2010 interview with Rolling Stone, Obama accused Fox News of focusing more on its point of view than objectivity. “It’s a point of view,” Obama said, “that I think is ultimately destructive for the long-term growth of a country that has a vibrant middle class and is competitive in the world.”

As Snopes previously reported, former Fox News White House correspondent Major Garrett asserted that though there was “never an effort to shut me out of the briefing room,” ongoing tensions between the Obama administration and Fox News hindered his ability to do his job. In a November 2018 interview with The Hill, he said:

The White House would always pull me aside and say “well, really, Major, we’re not at war with you,” and I said “stop talking to me like that because when you’re at war with my network you by definition are questioning and assailing my journalistic credibility and the work I do here every day,” he said. “So don’t tell me it’s not about me, it is about me.”

“Now, they never tried to pull my pass, but they had this sort of arms-length relationship to Fox and tried to demonize it on a daily basis. So that’s another part of American history and journalism in the White House press corps I think at least should be noted at this moment,” he said.

As we previously reported, Fox News’ White House correspondents were called on less during press briefings compared to other major television networks. In September 2009, when Obama made the talk show rounds to talk about healthcare reform, he snubbed “Fox News Sunday” and did not appear on the show until his last year in office in 2016.  

In 2013, The Washington Post reported that Obama’s Department of Justice surveilled a Fox News reporter and obtained a search warrant for his emails while conducting an investigation into national security leaks in 2009. The investigation also looked into other reporters but appeared to specifically target Fox News.

The Obama administration never banned Fox News outright, but no love was lost between the two groups. While Fox News accused the administration of cutting it out of one interview, the administration blamed it on miscommunication and gave the network access while not hiding its disdain for the network. 

For further reading, Snopes previously covered the misrepresented claim that former U.S. President Joe Biden cut reporters from the press pool. 

Snopes’ archives contributed to this report.

Sources

Claim:

Images authentically show a sculpture of Jesus Christ holding two Uzi submachine guns.

Rating:

In September 2026, images circulated on social media purportedly showing a sculpture of Jesus Christ completely covered in red paint and holding an Uzi submachine gun in each hand.

“BLASPHEMY: Statue of Christ crucified holding machine guns triggers uproar from Catholics,” one Facebook post (archived) read.

(Facebook page LifeSite)

Photographs of the sculpture spread across Facebook, TikTok and Reddit. Snopes readers also searched our website for information about the images.

In short, the images were authentic. They showed a real sculpture by French artist James Colomina, who confirmed to us via email that he created and installed the artwork at L’Aérosol, a network of spaces devoted to hip-hop and street art in Marseille, France, in September 2026.

What we know about the sculpture

Colomina posted photographs of the sculpture to Instagram on Sept. 10, describing the work as “Tu ne tueras point,” which is French for “Thou shalt not kill.” The post’s description read in full:

Thou shalt not kill.
L’Aérosol, Marseille, 2026.

We invented religions, laws, and principles.
Then we invented a thousand reasons to break them.

In an email, Colomina confirmed that the photographs showed the actual physical sculpture, which he installed at L’Aérosol on Sept. 7. “The sculpture is made of resin and painted red,” he said, adding that it “measures approximately 2 meters (6.5 feet) from head to toe.” He also confirmed that the weapons depicted in Christ’s hands were intended to be Uzis.

At the time, French-language coverage also documented the artwork. On Sept. 11, La Dépêche du Midi reported on the sculpture and published photographs credited to Colomina. Toulouse7 published similar details and also credited its images to the artist.

Colomina told us he personally took all of the photographs of the installation that he posted online or shared with news organizations, including images showing the sculpture both outside and inside L’Aérosol.

Why was the sculpture moved indoors?

Some news articles suggested the sculpture was moved indoors in response to public outrage.

Colomina told us he installed the sculpture outside L’Aérosol on the morning of Sept. 7, where it remained throughout the day. At approximately 11 p.m. that evening, organizers moved it indoors. According to Colomina, the decision was precautionary:

As the day went on, concern grew among the staff and organizers. They were convinced that this image, visible from the public space, would provoke very strong reactions. They were concerned about the consequences for the venue, but also about the safety of the staff and the people working there. As a precaution, they ultimately decided to remove the work from the exterior and move it indoors.

Colomina said that, to his knowledge, the decision wasn’t made in response to a specific threat. 

“The decision was primarily driven by the concerns of the staff and organizers about the reactions they believed the image would provoke,” he said.

Le Parisien later reported that there were concerns the sculpture could be damaged if it remained outside and that its display could offend the religious convictions of some local residents.

Therefore, the artist’s account suggests that the sculpture was not moved because of a specific threat or protest, but because organizers were worried the outdoor display could cause a strong reaction.

Meaning behind the sculpture

Colomina told us the work was based on the contradiction between the biblical commandment “Thou shalt not kill” and acts of violence committed in the name of religion:

“Thou shalt not kill” begins with a contradiction that fascinates me. The biblical commandment is clear: “Thou shalt not kill.” And yet, throughout history and still today, people have killed and continue to kill in the name of their God, regardless of the religion they claim to follow.

He said depicting Christ holding two Uzis was intended to force viewers to confront that contradiction. “Christ is a symbol here, but the work is not aimed at Christianity or at any particular religion,” Colomina said. Rather, the artwork addressed a broader discrepancy between the principles societies establish and their behavior:

Through the religions, laws and principles that structure our societies, the work confronts us with our contradictions. We establish rules, values and prohibitions, and then find a thousand reasons to break them.

All in all, the photographs circulating on social media were authentic. They showed Colomina’s physical sculpture, which he installed at L’Aérosol in Marseille in September 2026. The artist also confirmed that he took the photographs himself and that the sculpture depicts Christ holding two Uzis.

In September 2026, a claim recirculated online that Ukraine had allegedly given the U.S. false intelligence that the United States then leaked to Russia, which revealed the U.S. as an unreliable intelligence partner.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, starting a war that is ongoing as of this writing.

For example, one X user, whose post had been viewed more than 8 million times at the time of publication, wrote (archived), “France and Ukraine fed Trump false intelligence to test whether he would leak it to Putin—and he did.”

An Instagram user then posted a screenshot of that X post (archived). The caption said the claim fueled “speculation that Trump or people around his administration were leaking intelligence to Moscow,” but added that it “has not been proven.”

(X)

The rumor first spread at the start of 2026, shortly after French President Emmanuel Macron said France was providing two-thirds of Ukraine’s intelligence on Jan. 15. Social media users then suggested the reasoning behind the French-Ukrainian intelligence partnership was the alleged leak of false Ukrainian intelligence from the U.S. to Russia. Posts making the claim featured on X, Substack, Medium, Bluesky and Reddit.

Several posts, including one on Facebook (archived), featured a screenshot of a since-deleted X post by user Luc Rombout, which read:

Interesting message on French newschannel LCI:

“Ukrainian intell services sent false strategic info to US intell services… and observed that the information had been relayed to RUS and was used by RUS forces.”

=> total replacement of US as Intell partner with FRA, GBR, DEU [France, the U.K., Germany]

“Trump is leaking intelligence about our allies to Russia,” the Facebook post’s caption read.

Snopes could find no evidence confirming the rumor Ukraine had shared false information with the U.S. Instead, this claim appeared to stem from a misunderstanding of an interview that aired on Jan. 16, 2026, on the French news television channel LCI. 

The interview subject was Vincent Crouzet, who formerly worked at the Directorate General for External Security (DGSE), France’s foreign intelligence agency. He said in the interview, without citing his sources, that Ukrainian intelligence officials suspected the U.S. had leaked information to Russia, causing Ukraine to stop sharing intelligence with the United States.

Asked to clarify his assertion that the U.S. had leaked Ukrainian intelligence to Russia, Crouzet said in a Jan. 18, 2026, X post (archived), which in English reads, “No, I did not say that: I said Ukrainians suspected risks of information leaks from the U.S. to the Russians.”

Snopes first contacted Crouzet in January 2026 and then reached out to him again in September to ask him what evidence he could provide that Ukrainians suspected intelligence leaks from the U.S. to Russia and whether there was any reason to believe Ukraine had fed the U.S. false information. We also contacted the White House for a comment on the rumor. We will update this report if we receive any responses. 

Due to the fact that we could not verify or disprove these details independently, we did not give this report a rating.

The interview that sparked the rumor

The rumor spread, in part, via the screenshot of the X post by Rombout, who identified himself on his LinkedIn page as the head of a crisis management center in Belgium. 

Rombout’s post appeared to reshare a video clip posted on the 24H Pujadas account. 24H Pujadas is a program on LCI, considered reputable in France. 

The clip itself was genuine and not created or altered using an artificial intelligence tool. Snopes identified an X post by the TV program 24H Pujadas with the video clip (archived) and a full video of the segment on the day it aired, Jan. 16, 2026. The presenter on that day was French journalist Yves Calvi.

Rombout seemingly deleted his original X post that made the claim. In a later post, he said in French that he was quoting the discussion in the French news program, implying that the claim did not originate with him.

A review of the televised interview showed Crouzet saying, in the context of discussing Macron’s speech announcing France was now providing two-thirds of Ukraine’s intelligence, that two Ukrainian intelligence officials had decided to stop sharing intelligence with the U.S. due to a lack of trust (emphasis ours):

So this announcement went a bit under the radar, yet it is essential. It is essential in two ways. First because it marks the divorce between Ukrainian intelligence and U.S. intelligence, because if we [France] supply two-thirds of Ukraine’s intelligence, I can well imagine that the last third is supplies by other European partners — in this case, Germany and the U.K.

When did this divorce happen? It happened on Feb. 28, 2025, during the famous session in the Oval Office, which created a break in the trust between Ukrainian intelligence and U.S. intelligence, to the point where the two leaders of Ukrainian intelligence — so, Vasyl Malyuk for the SBU [Security Service of Ukraine] and Kyrylo Budanov … you can see them on the screen … for the GUR [Main Directorate of Intelligence, military intelligence] — decided to no longer share effective intelligence they had with their U.S. partner due to U.S. leaks to Moscow.

Rombout’s X post seemingly misinterpreted some details. At no point did Crouzet say Ukraine had fed the U.S. false information and then tracked that information to Russia. We first reached out to Rombout in January and then contacted him again in September for his response to our findings about the possible translation error. We will update this report if we receive a response.

For further reading, Snopes examined a rumor spread by Russian hackers that 1.7 million Ukrainians died or went missing during the war with Russia.

Claim:

A Facebook graphic authentically showed that the price of some household goods and utilities rose more during U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration than during President Donald Trump’s second term.

Rating:

Context

The graphic presented an unfair comparison of changes to the inflation rate for 12 household goods and utilities during the Biden and second Trump administrations. The graphic’s comparison wasn’t accurate because it compared Biden’s full 48-month term to only 20 months of Trump’s. Additionally, Snopes could not replicate the figures the graphic presented using the database it listed as a source.

In September 2026, a Facebook graphic (archived) circulated online that social media users claimed authentically showed that the price of some household goods and utilities rose more during the U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration than during President Donald Trump’s second term. 

In other words, social media users claimed the graphic showed that the rate of inflation, meaning the increase in prices over time, was higher during Biden’s presidency than during Trump’s second term.

For example, one Facebook user shared the graphic and wrote, “Inflation hit American families hard under Biden.”

The graphic also circulated elsewhere on Facebook, including on the page of the Denton County Republican Party in Texas (archived, archived). Social media users on Instagram, Threads and TikTok also shared the post (archived, archived, archived). Snopes readers contacted us to ask whether the numbers on the graphic were real.

While the graphics did purport to show that the price of some household goods and utilities rose less during the second Trump administration than during Biden’s presidential term, its figures appeared to be false (wrong), fake (fabricated) or both, and the comparison it made wasn’t accurate or fair.

We could not replicate any of the rate-of-inflation changes the graphic indicated took place between January 2021 and January 2025 or between January 2025 and August 2026 using the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) database. Importantly, it’s the same database the graphic said it pulled its data from.

The graphic also made an unfair comparison by directly comparing Biden’s 48-month presidency to the 20 months between January 2025 and August 2026 (both included) of Trump’s second term. Because inflation is measured over time, direct comparisons should use time periods of the same length. A “fair” comparison in this case might have compared either the first 20 months of Biden’s presidency to the first 20 months of Trump’s or Biden’s full term to Trump’s full first term.

The source of the graphic was unclear. We contacted the Denton County Republican Party, which posted an early version of the graphic, to ask where they got their data from and await a reply.

It’s worth noting that Pangram, a highly regarded artificial intelligence detector for images and text, found two versions of the graphic to be fully AI. Facebook also marked the Denton County Republican Party’s posting of the graphic as AI content. (It’s important to note that currently, no AI detection tool is regarded as 100% reliable.)

It’s unclear what the sources of the images we scanned might have used AI for. They could have used AI tools to find or conjure the data or merely to present it. 

What is the CPI?

The graphic listed the BLS’ CPI-U database as its source. According to the BLS, the CPI tracks “changes in prices of all goods and services purchased for consumption by urban households” — in other words, inflation. CPI-U covers urban consumers, which the BLS says accounts for 90% of the total population of the U.S. 

Because the CPI tracks price changes over time, it makes the most sense to use the index when comparing one point in time to another. According to the BLS website, most of its index series — meaning a data set that tracks prices for a certain item over time — use an average index from the 36 months covering 1982, 1983, and 1984. The BLS assigns that time period an index of 100, and all later periods show changes compared to that baseline. 

The BLS wrote:

An index of 110, for example, means there has been a 10-percent increase in price since the reference period; similarly, an index of 90 means there has been a 10-percent decrease.

Changes to the rate of inflation (what the CPI measures) are usually reported as a percentage. This is because a percentage most accurately reflects how much prices have fallen or risen between two points in time.

What the data actually says

The Facebook post above claimed that the graphic used index series from the CPI-U database, using “U.S. cities average” to define the area where the BLS collected the data. 

We found index series for 12 out of the 13 items listed in the Facebook graphic. The BLS doesn’t publish an index series for “Natural gas” within its CPI-U database, meaning the figures the Facebook graphic used could not have come from that source.

The graphic didn’t say whether it used data that was “seasonally adjusted.” The BLS said on its website that such an adjustment attempts to remove “the influences of predictable seasonal patterns from time series data.”

We used seasonally adjusted data in our attempt to recreate the Facebook graphic (except for “baby food and formula,” which did not have seasonally adjusted data available). As the Facebook graphic said, we pulled data for “U.S. city average” from the database.

The data from the actual BLS CPI-U database showed that, for 12 goods or utilities, prices rose slower during Trump’s second term than during Biden’s first. However, that was to be expected given Biden’s term covered a time period more than twice as long as the initial 20 months of Trump’s second term.

The actual BLS CPI-U data also differed from the Facebook graphic that the Denton County Republicans posted for every good or service listed. In fact, the Denton County Republicans post short-changed Trump in some places, as the actual data showed inflation had fallen for four of the products listed — not just one, as the graphic claimed.

We used the Denton County Republicans post for comparison because the page posted an early version of the graphic.

A ‘fair’ comparison

For good measure, here is what a “fair” comparison of the rate of inflation for 12 products during the first 20 months of Biden’s presidency and the first 20 months of Trump’s second presidency would look like:

 

According to the CPI-U’s data for January 2021 to August 2022 and January 2025 to August 2026, the rate of inflation was lower for 10 of the 12 products during the first 20 months of Trump’s second term. 

It’s worth noting here that the start of Biden’s presidency coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic and the highest period of inflation recorded in the U.S. for at least 20 years. Experts disagree about the reason for the high rates of post-COVID inflation. 

The Brookings Institution, a think tank based in Washington, D.C, wrote in June 2023 that:

Most of the rise in inflation in 2021 and 2022 was driven by developments that directly raised prices rather than wages, including sharp increases in global commodity prices and sectoral price spikes driven by a combination of pandemic-induced kinks in supply chains and a huge shift in demand during the pandemic to goods from services.

It assigned a smaller role to fiscal policy.

Meanwhile, researchers from the MIT Sloan School of Management found in July 2024 that 42% of the inflation seen in 2022 “could be attributed to government spending.” Federal spending to bolster the economy during the COVID pandemic helped it bounce back but also caused a “surge” in inflation, according to the school’s experts.

In sum, the Facebook post that circulated online claiming lower rates of inflation for 13 products during Trump’s second term than Biden’s first appeared to use fabricated data and also presented an unfair comparison. It’s unclear whether various creators used AI to source, conjure and/or present the data. 

For further reading, Snopes has previously investigated other claims about inflation.

Claim:

Denver Broncos quarterback Bo Nix responded to U.S. President Donald Trump calling a female reporter a “pig” by releasing a video in which he said that “staying silent makes me part of the problem.”

Rating:

Throughout 2026, people shared a rumor alleging Denver Broncos quarterback Bo Nix responded to U.S. President Donald Trump calling a reporter a pig. According to social media users’ posts, the NFL quarterback publicly rebuked Trump, saying that “staying silent makes me part of the problem.”

For example, on Sept. 20, a Facebook post (archived) read, “BREAKING NFL NEWS: Broncos star Bo Nix breaks his silence in shocking video response after ‘Little Pig’ comment to a female reporter shocks T.r.u.m.p — NFL superstar condemns disrespect towards women and sparks nationwide outrage.”

The post featured a meme showing side-by-side images of Nix and Trump, with a purported Nix quote reading as follows:

When I watched that clip, something in me snapped. I play this game with fire and pride, but I was raised to respect every woman who cheers, works, and sacrifices behind the scenes. If a man with that much power can mock and demean them in front of the world, then staying silent makes me part of the problem. And I refuse to be part of that.

Other examples of the claim appeared on Facebook, Instagram and Threads. Snopes readers also searched this website in September 2026, specifically asking, “Did Bo Nix stand up for a female reporter?”

We first used search engines such as DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo to locate possible evidence from credible sources about Nix publicly commenting on Trump. If the story was true, journalists with reputable news outlets, such as The Associated Press or Reuters — or sports blogs — would have widely reported on it. That was not the case. 

The rumor about Bo Nix responding to Trump was fictional, and as a result we’ve rated the claim false.

The claim appeared to take inspiration from a real remark Trump made in November 2025 while aboard Air Force One, when he told a female reporter asking a question, “Quiet. Quiet, piggy.” Snopes previously investigated that quote and found Trump genuinely said it.

People.com, citing a journalist’s X post, reported the female journalist Trump addressed as “piggy” was Bloomberg reporter Catherine Lucey. The subject matter of Lucey’s question pertained to asking Trump about his past relationship with deceased convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

We emailed the Denver Broncos to ask if the organization would like to address the fake Nix quote and will update this article if we receive further details.

Digging into the rumor

In addition to social media posts, the untrue rumor about Nix publicly rebuking Trump appeared on a handful of generic-looking WordPress blogs. Those blogs lacked author names and credible information about their founding. An examination of the blogs found they were not reputable outlets, for example such as well-known newspapers or established news websites, or websites for local or national TV channels.

A scan of the text in one blog article with the artificial intelligence detection tool Pangram displayed the results, “We believe that this entire text is AI,” as well as, “100% of this text is AI.”

Snopes doesn’t depend solely on AI detection tools, which vary in reliability, and instead considers the tools’ results as one of several data points toward judging an image’s authenticity. For Pangram, we bear in mind the platform’s strong performance in third-party and internal evaluations, as well as criticisms of the tool.

Creators of content like the fabricated Nix quote capitalize on social media users’ willingness to believe and share the made-up stories, profiting from advertising revenue on external websites to which the posts link. (Snopes has previously reported on the business strategy.)

The fictional story about Nix standing up for women resembled glurge, which Dictionary.com defines as “stories, often sent by email, that are supposed to be true and uplifting, but which are often fabricated and sentimental.”

For further reading, we previously reported about whether Broncos head coach Sean Payton fired two players for refusing to stand for the U.S. national anthem.

Sources