Tag: Snopes News

Claim:

Oscar-winning actor Denzel Washington said, “I’ve worked with a lot of people in my life, and I’ve never met anyone braver, smarter, or who cares more about America than Donald Trump. He’s a great friend and an even better president. I’m proud to be a steadfast supporter, and I’ll never apologize for it. God Bless America and our president.”

Rating:

For at least several months, people have attributed a quote to Oscar-winning actor Denzel Washington in which he allegedly praised and pledged support for U.S. President Donald Trump.

Snopes received website searches from readers looking for more information about the quote, which read as follows:

I’ve worked with a lot of people in my life, and I’ve never met anyone braver, smarter, or who cares more about America than Donald Trump. He’s a great friend and an even better president. I’m proud to be a steadfast supporter, and I’ll never apologize for it. God Bless America and our president.

Searches for Washington and Trump located users posting the rumor in quote memes, for example on Facebook, Threads (archived) and X (archived).

(Redline News via Facebook)

Some users’ comments indicated they believed Washington truly spoke out in favor of Trump, while others expressed skepticism that the actor would say such a thing.

In sum, an extensive search for credible evidence turned up nothing at all, indicating Washington never said this. Also, we previously reported as similarly untrue that fellow Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey and musician Mick Jagger uttered the words after people reposted memes attributing the exact same quote to them.

As such, we rate this claim as an incorrect attribution.

Snopes emailed a representative for Washington for confirmation and will update this article if we receive further information.

Digging into the rumor

We performed an initial search for Washington and Trump on Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo. Those searches failed to locate any credible sources reporting that Washington praised Trump, either in the words displayed in the meme or in any similar manner.

Likewise, searches of the news media outlets ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, MS NOW, NBC News, Newsmax and NewsNation found no reporting that Washington spoke favorably of Trump.

If any actor of Washington’s prominence who had never publicly expressed such support in the past were to say the words attributed to them in the meme, national and international outlets covering entertainment and politics would have widely reported it. We found no such reporting.

We reported in 2016 that, despite another rumor, Washington did not publicly announce his support for Trump. We also fact-checked a false rumor alleging the actor said that electing Trump saved the U.S. from becoming an “Orwellian police state.”

People who create and repost misinformation often exploit the names of actors known for portraying tough, “he tells it like it is” leading men in movies, for example Clint Eastwood, Tom Selleck, Sam Elliott, Washington and others, to boost the credibility of their fabricated claims.

On Oct. 8, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth confirmed (archived) reports that the U.S. military was planning to livestream the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, which is currently set for Dec. 3. 

A military jury sentenced Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, to death in 2013 after it found him guilty of killing 13 people and injuring 30 more during a shooting rampage at the Army’s Fort Hood post in Texas in 2009. U.S. President Donald Trump approved (archived) Hasan’s death sentence on Oct. 2, clearing the path for his execution.

On Oct. 8, Hegseth shared an X post by CBS News that read:

The U.S. military plans to livestream the execution of Nidal Hasan, the ex-Army major who was convicted of the 2009 killing of 13 people at Fort Hood, when he faces a firing squad on Dec. 3, a Pentagon official said.

Hegseth wrote, “Correct.”

One day later, on Oct. 9, the Associated Press reported that Vice President JD Vance cast doubt on whether the Pentagon would actually livestream the execution. “I don’t know that that’s actually going to happen,” he reportedly said.

Following Hegseth’s confirmation, discussion abounded online about whether executing Hasan in such a public manner was legal (archived, archived, archived). Snopes readers also contacted us about the legality of the planned livestream.

The military justice system, which is separate from the civilian justice systems in the U.S., carried out Hasan’s trial and sentencing in 2013. On Oct. 5, Hegseth’s assistant secretary for public affairs Sean Parnell wrote on X (archived) that the Army’s firing squad would execute Hasan, meaning his execution would be governed by Army regulations.

At the time of this writing, the U.S. Army did not have regulations explicitly allowing it to livestream an execution. Rather, Army Regulation 190–55, which covers procedures for military executions, included requirements that would likely hinder the Army’s ability to provide a public livestream.

Gary Barthel, a former U.S. Marine Corps officer and managing partner at the Military Law Center, told Snopes on Oct. 9 that if the Army wanted to legally livestream Hasan’s execution, officials would have to either seek an exemption to regulation 190-55 from the Office of the Provost Marshal General as laid out in the regulation itself or amend the existing regulation to allow livestreaming. 

We contacted the Department of the Defense to ask if it was planning to do either of these things and await a reply.

Because the legality of livestreaming Hasan’s execution was potentially subject to change, we leave this claim unrated. 

What Army regulation says

Chapter 2-5 of regulation 190-55 lists who may and may not witness a military execution. According to the chapter, no person younger than 18 years old may witness an execution and the Army must approve the list of witnesses beforehand.

Those two stipulations could make it difficult for the Army to provide a public livestream without violating its own regulations because it would have to vet the audience’s age. Hosting a truly public livestream would make it impossible to approve a list of “witnesses” ahead of the execution because people might log in to watch on the day without registering beforehand.

Barthel told Snopes via phone on Oct. 9:

The Army is required to follow its regulations. If the Army wants to stream this execution they need to change the regulations to allow it. And, either way, I would anticipate that there is going to be some efforts to stop it.

Barthel said that Hasan’s defense team could still ask a civilian court to stop the execution and live stream by filing a habeas corpus petition. Such a petition allows a detainee to challenge their detention in court.

Would public execution be ‘cruel and unusual punishment’?

Daniel Maurer, an associate professor at the Claude W. Pettit College of Law at Ohio Northern University, told Snopes that livestreaming Hasan’s execution could raise constitutional concerns that would ultimately play out in court.

Hasan’s defense could bring up such constitutional concerns as part of a habeas petition. Maurer said via email on Oct. 9 that Hasan’s defense could argue that being executed on livestream amounted to “cruel and unusual punishment,” which is banned by the U.S. Constitution’s 8th Amendment. Maurer wrote (links ours):

The remaining legal issue is maybe more complicated and would need courts to resolve it: does such a practice violate Hasan’s 8th Amendment protection from “cruel and unusual punishments?” – this protection is also stated in the UCMJ, article 55, and Army Regulation 190-47 (“The Army Corrections System”) so it applies to prisoners already confined, not just defendants at court-martial sentencing. 

In order to establish whether livestreaming Hasan’s execution amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, the courts might apply the “Evolving Standard” test, according to Maurer. The test allows courts to consider whether a punishment is cruel and unusual under current societal standards, rather than according to standards at the time the Constitution was written. 

Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Library wrote that “in the context of capital punishment, the Court has generally viewed the Eighth Amendment to prohibit punishments that ‘involve the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain.’”

Though livestreaming may not inflict “unnecessary and wanton” pain, Maurer said there are other factors at play:

Given that federal law prohibits photographic or other visual or audio recording of an execution of any other civilian federal prisoner, this is strong evidence that our own federal government (of which the DoD is of course a part) would consider it to be “cruel and unusual,” and thus would be an 8th Amendment violation.

Eugene R. Fidell, a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School specializing in military law, called the decision to livestream Hasan’s execution “sick-making” when speaking to Snopes on Oct. 9. He previously told DRM News that a habeas petition could postpone Hasan’s execution past the end of the Trump administration as it progressed through the civilian court system. That means Hasan’s execution and any potential livestream could be halted by an administration without “the same penchant for executions,” Fidell reportedly told the Associated Press.

It was unclear whether Hasan would file a habeas petition. The Associated Press reported that Hasan had begun his 2013 trial by firing his lawyers and telling jurors that he was the gunman in the 2009 shooting. The outlet reported that this move “convinced his court-appointed standby lawyers that Hasan’s only goal was to get a death sentence.” It remained unclear whether Hasan’s goal remained the same in 2026.

The nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center wrote that Hasan’s execution would be the first military execution in the U.S. since 1961.

The Washington Post, citing the center, reported that the last high-profile public execution of any type in the U.S. took place in 1936. Another public execution took place the year after.

For further reading, Snopes compiled 17 claims about the death penalty that we’ve investigated over the years.

Sources

In October, several weeks after a lawsuit was filed accusing seven male students at Cornell University of drugging and raping a female student in 2024, a rumor spread about the whereabouts of one of the accused men. According to the claim, Matthew Ingalls — who reportedly initiated the encounter with the accuser, named in court documents only as Jane Doe — fled to Dubai, where he previously lived. 

Posts on Facebook (archived) and Instagram claimed Ingalls, who the posts said also goes by Umar Matthew Ingalls, was in Dubai with his family:

Umar Matthew Ingalls, one of the “Cornell 7” accused in the alleged 2024 gang rape at the Chi Phi house, is now reportedly in Dubai, where he grew up. Neighbors of his relatives in Connecticut told the Daily Mail they believe he’s back in the Middle East with his dad. How convenient.

Quick refresher on Mr. Ingalls. He’s the one Jane Doe says invited her to the house that night. He’s also the one who, according to messages filed in her lawsuit, shared a photo of her in the frat’s Snapchat group chat and wrote “Like you can walk in and whip it out.” The New York Post reports he added “Boys come whip it out.” Truly the words of a gentleman.

(Facebook user Feminist News)

The rumor originated from a report in the Daily Mail, a British tabliod, that relied on anonymous sources. Snopes is unable to verify Ingalls’ whereabouts as of this writing, so we have left this claim unrated. We have, however, found records of an Umar Ingalls who studied at the Dubai International Academy in Emirates Hills, Dubai, whose appearance matches that of Matthew Ingalls.

We have reached out to Ingalls — whom The New York Times reported had been expelled from Cornell — via his old college email address, to a person believed to be his father, to the Dubai International Academy and also to the Annie Wright School in Tacoma, Washington, where Ingalls reportedly studied as a child. We will update this story as we learn more.

The Daily Mail identified Ingalls as Umar Matthew Ingalls and spoke to an anonymous neighbor of Ingalls’ uncle in Connecticut, where Ingalls’ address was listed in court records. That neighbor reportedly told the tabloid Ingalls hadn’t been seen at the home in some time and that they thought he was in Dubai.

Our public records search for Umar Matthew Ingalls found his name appeared connected to an address in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts, that also was linked to the name Matthew B. Ingalls. 

The Daily Mail identified Ingalls’ father as a Yale-educated professor at the American University in Dubai. We found a Matthew B. Ingalls listed as an associate professor of Middle Eastern studies at the American University in Dubai. Snopes reached out to him to verify his identity and relationship to Ingalls and will update this story as we get more information. 

Several purported photographs of Matthew Ingalls have circulated, including one showing him wearing a Cornell rugby T-shirt and another from what appears to be his now-deleted LinkedIn account. According to the university’s student newspaper, The Cornell Daily Sun, the school’s rugby club confirmed Ingalls was previously a part of its roster. 

We found that Ingalls’ image from his deleted LinkedIn account had SynthID markers — which are inserted into images created with some generative artificial intelligence platforms — and was thus likely edited with AI. However, the photograph of Ingalls in his rugby shirt did not. We then compared that photograph to other images we found of him and found several matches. 

Dubai International Academy’s 2022-23 yearbook identifies Umar Ingalls as a member of the class of 2023 and part of the athletics team. The person in the yearbook photo appears to be the same person wearing the Cornell rugby shirt. 

(Dubai International Academy)

Umar Ingalls also was mentioned in a 2022 story in the Khaleej Times, a Dubai newspaper. The article reported on a group of students who created their own version of a lunar rover. The accompanying photograph is blurry, but the student in the back right has a strong resemblance to Ingalls. 

A 2020 blog post on the website for Annie Wright Schools, an elite private school in Tacoma, Washington, identified Umar Ingalls as half-American. He appeared to have studied at the Lower School until 2016 and lived in Dubai at the time the article was written. He commented on how Americans were perceived in Dubai after the election victory of U.S. President Donald Trump. 

For further reading, we have previously reported on numerous rumors about the Cornell rape case.

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Claim:

A screenshot authentically shows an X post from Elon Musk that says: “No one needs to worry about Democrats winning the midterm elections. I have a plan.”

Rating:

For more than a year, social media users have spread a purported screenshot of an X post by Elon Musk that says: “No one needs to worry about Democrats winning the midterm elections. I have a plan.”

The alleged screenshot circulated on platforms such as X and Reddit. Snopes readers contacted us to investigate the screenshot’s legitimacy. 

However, a search of Musk’s X account found no evidence that this post exists. Furthermore, we found no screenshots of the post that included a timestamp or additional details indicating it was authentic, indicating that Musk did not share this X post and then delete it. If the screenshot circulating online were indeed authentic, there would be additional examples of the post through other users’ varying screenshots. 

Similarly, a search of an independent archive for Musk statements returned no relevant results. Searches on Google, DuckDuckGo and Yahoo also revealed no evidence that reputable news outlets have covered this supposed statement. 

As such, we have rated this screenshot as fake. 

The earliest version of the fake X post that we found was posted in August 2025, from Threads user @powermacuser12.

That post claimed Musk “rigged the vote tabulation computers in the swing states to ensure Trump won the 2024 election, & he’s obviously planning on cheating again in the midterm elections.” 

“He should be hauled into jail by the FBI for his post below,” powermacuser said, in reference to the fake screenshot. 

We reached out to the Threads user to ask more about where they obtained the screenshot and await a response. 

Snopes previously found no evidence Musk rigged the election in favor of Trump via his Starlink satellite network. In fact, most election systems are a closed network, making connection to Starlink impossible. 

The political conditions that led to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol will be studied for decades. The extent to which President Donald Trump influenced the violent attempt to stop Congress’ certification of the 2020 presidential election remains a major question.

Some critics of the president not only allege he incited the attack with false claims of election fraud, but that his campaign paid for the travel and lodging expenses of the people who stormed the Capitol while they were in Washington, D.C.

That rumor, which has circulated for years (archived), gained traction in recent weeks after former Special Counsel Jack Smith defended his investigation into Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot before the Senate Committee for the Judiciary. 

One Facebook post claimed, “Jack Smiths new document drop shows that the Trump Campaign PAID for travel, hotels, expenses and organizing efforts to bring outside radical organizers” to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6 (archived): 

(Democrats, Republicans and Independents for Democracy)

Trump headlined the rally at the Ellipse, a park near the White House, that preceded the attack on the Capitol. At the end of his speech, he asked those present to march to the Capitol. “We’re going to the Capitol,” he said. Violence began at the Capitol shortly after Trump finished speaking.

The claim that Trump’s campaign funded the rally draws on authentic, unsealed records that Smith assembled about Jan. 6. However, Snopes found no evidence that his official campaign covered attendees’ expenses or organization costs of that rally.

In addition, the documents Smith compiled are not new. A judge’s order unsealed them in 2024.

One of these documents indicates several independent political advocacy groups received money to organize the so-called “Save America” rally. 

Congressional documents reveal that the financial backing for the event came from one person in particular — Julie Fancelli, heiress to the Publix supermarket chain.

To learn more about the financing, we reached out to Fancelli, Caroline Wren — a Republican fundraiser who helped Fancelli distribute money for the Jan. 6 rally — and some political advocacy groups that received money for the event. We also reached out to the White House asking about Trump’s involvement in the day’s organization. We will update this report if we receive responses.

Smith’s documents outline Jan. 6 rally expenses

In October 2024, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan issued an order unsealing 1,889 pages of documents Smith had assembled about what happened on Jan. 6. (Chutkan was set to decide which allegations against Trump could still be prosecuted after a U.S. Supreme Court decision granted presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution for official actions while in office.)

Smith compiled the documents through his investigation into the matter. Notably, some of these documents had been subpoenaed directly from the participants as part of a congressional investigation, as shown below. 

According to the documents Smith submitted, planners of the rally that preceded the Capitol attack proposed a $3 million budget for expenses.

The donations used to cover various expenses were funneled through multiple political advocacy organizations, including Turning Point Action, Save the U.S. Senate PAC, Tea Party Express, the Rule of Law Defense Fund RAGA — the advocacy arm of Republican Attorneys General Association (Page 305 of the PDF) — Women for America First and Bluebonnet Fundraising, Wren’s fundraising company.

(Trump, Appendix 4, Page 305, via Jack Smith)

Turning Point Action, Save the U.S. Senate PAC, Tea Party Express, Rule of Law Defense Fund RAGA and Women for America First are all section 501(c)4 organizations, also known as “dark money” groups, or political advocacy organizations that are not legally required to disclose their donors. These groups did not directly work for, or coordinate with, Trump’s official 2020 presidential campaign, but they supported either his candidacy or other Republican candidates running for lower offices.

Save the U.S. Senate PAC and Women for America First are no longer active. We reached out to Turning Point Action, Tea Party Express and the Rule of Defense Fund RAGA seeking details about their roles in the rally but did not receive responses by the time of publication.

The files included the same list of expenses (Page 317) with certain amounts lowered. This copy included handwritten notes, such as “we pay our own way.” The amended budget totaled $2.4 million:

(Trump, Appendix 4, Page 317, via Jack Smith)

As we outline below, congressional testimonies revealed how the amounts were amended.

The name of someone who supposedly received $200,000 to “assist with his organization efforts” was redacted in both budget tables. 

Both budgets indicated that some money was earmarked for speaker fees and travel, “crowd building and busing,” and hotels and private flights for a group whose name was redacted. The claim may have originated from these details. The Trump campaign is not listed in this budget.

Republican operative’s testimony aligns with Smith’s budget info

In December 2021, Dustin Stockton, a Republican operative who was involved in the preparation for the “Save America” rally, testified in Congress that Wren told him the night before, on Jan. 5, that she raised $3 million for the event. This testimony aligns with the budget documentation in Smith’s files.

According to Stockton’s account, Wren “parked” the money at “Republican Governors Association, TPUSA, Tea Party Express.” (TPUSA refers to Turning Point USA, the nonprofit 501(c)3 sister organization to Turning Point Action.) Describing his exchange with Wren, Stockton testified (Pages 96-99 of the PDF):

But she tells me a lot of stuff. So she tells me that she raised — 

[…]

And Caroline [Wren] told me that she raised the $3 million, and that she parked the money with the Republican Governors Association, TPUSA, and Tea Party Express. And I actually clarified with her, because, like, I assumed she meant Tea Party Patriots, but she clarified that it was Tea Party Express, which seemed interesting because both Amy [Kremer, former chairperson of Tea Party Express] and I have our political roots there. 

(The budget tables unsealed in Smith’s documents did not list the “Republican Governors Association,” but the Republican Attorneys General Association, which works to elect Republicans as attorneys general across the country and “has been incredibly supportive of President Trump’s legal efforts” to overturn voting results in the 2020 election, according to Page 305 of Smith’s document. Stockton clarified with Snopes he meant the latter in his testimony.) 

Stockton told Snopes via email he helped fundraise for Jan. 6 on behalf of Kremer and her daughter Kylie Kremer, a leader of Women for America First at the time and someone who spoke at the “Save America” rally.

“I helped the Kremers raise a lot of money for all the D.C. events and bus tours that included January 6,” Stockton said. “It was in the millions of dollars total but I have no idea how much would have been for the event at the Ellipse.”

Wren names Publix heiress Julie Fancelli as donor

In a Dec. 17, 2021, deposition with Congress, Wren said she fundraised specifically for the “Save America” rally, which she called the “Million MAGA March.” 

She said donations from Fancelli, the heiress to Publix, were distributed to several groups tasked with organizing the rally (starting on Page 46 in the PDF), including Turning Point Action, Save the U.S. Senate PAC, Tea Party Express (which Wren suggested because the organization had experience with bussing protesters to designed locations), Rule of Law Defense Fund RAGA and Women for America First.  

In her testimony, Wren discussed the amounts Fancelli committed to the various organizations listed in the two versions of the budget presented among Smith’s documents, including $1 million for Turning Point Action (Page 49), $50,000 for Bluebonnet Fundraising LLC (Wren’s company) and $300,000 for Women for America First (Page 51). 

Wren also explains how the amounts were amended. The annotated copy of the budget on Page 317 of Smith’s documents reflected several of those changes.

Fancelli deposed, pleads the Fifth

On Feb. 18, 2022, the congressional January 6 Committee deposed Fancelli. While she invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, the 132-page transcript mentioned evidence that corroborated Wren’s claims. 

The evidence came from Fancelli, whose records the committee subpoenaed for the investigation.

The evidence, which included text messages and emails read by the interrogators, indicated Fancelli was prepared to donate as much as $3 million toward the rally. She received the proposed budget via email and her accountant helped her amend it. The evidence also suggested she did not expect the rally to turn into a violent attack on the Capitol. 

The committee’s final report said her financial support made the rally possible. 

On Pages 24 and 25 of the PDF, the interrogator read a text exchange between Wren and Taylor Budowich, a then-Republican operative who served as White House deputy chief of staff between January and September 2025:

(…) on Saturday, December 26th, which is the date that Ms. Wren was at your home, Ms. Wren texts, “I’m at Julie Fancelli’s.” “Guess what the budget is she just gave me for our bus project?” “You won’t guess.” “$3 million … ” 

And Mr. Budowich responds with several “lol”s and says, “probably could do it for 3.”

And then Ms. Wren responds, “we can use some for save the us senate.” “I’ll call you when I leave here.” And then turning to the next page, she says, “she wanted to just wire me the 3 mill lol.”

And Mr. Budowich responds, “rich people are so odd.” 

At one point (Pages 40-41), an interrogator quotes language from a budget plan regarding funding for RAGA’s “legal efforts to fight the election fraud around the country.” Because this language appeared in one of Smith’s unsealed documents, it suggests Fancelli received that same version.

Fancelli’s deposition also gives clues about discrepancies between the budget in Smith’s documents and her actual donations. On Page 40, the interrogator reads from an email sent by Marianne Parsons, Fancelli’s accountant, as part of an ongoing conversation about the proposed budget:

And next it says the “Rule of Law Defense Fund- we are cutting that by $50,000 … please trim how many or how much each attorney general gets for expenses and other expenditures.” 

In our email to RAGA, we inquired about the presence of any attorneys general at the rally.

None of this evidence suggests Fancelli wanted or expected the rally to turn into an attack on the Capitol. On Page 89 of her deposition, the interrogator read a text message she had written:

Ms. Fancelli, if I could clarify, on Wednesday, January 6th, at 1:50 p.m., when you asked, “What is really happening?!”, presumably, with the question mark and exclamation mark, it’s possible that you had seen things on the news that indicated that something might be going wrong at the Capitol, and you were trying to check with somebody who was actually there and present. 

Jan. 6 committee’s report on Fancelli’s role

The congessional committee’s final report, published in late 2022, summarized Fancelli’s role in the events of that day:

Fancelli worked with Wren to create a multimillion-dollar budget to convene as many supporters of President Trump as possible To ensure that Fancelli’s dollars made maximum impact, Wren contacted some of the major players who were rallying supporters for January 6th. Wren emailed Kylie Kremer and exchanged texts with [Alex] Jones and [Cindy] Chafian. Fancelli’s goal was clear: she wanted to spend $3 million to “get as many people there as possible.” The resulting budget allocated $500,000 to a busing program and a centralized ad campaign by the Tea Party Express to promote the event. Another $500,000 went to assisting WFAF [Women for America First] and Jones in their organizational efforts.

(Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ podcast inspired Fancelli to support the movement. Jones spoke at the rally. Cindy Chafian was one of the organizers of the rally.)

Fancelli did not respond to our queries as of this writing.

Fancelli has donated money to Republican candidates since at least 2016, according to data from the Federal Election Commission. For example, in 2016, she gave money to Secretary of State’s Marco Rubio’s presidential bid and to the campaign of former  Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Republican from Florida. The Miami New Times reported Fancelli donated to a pro-Trump “dark money” group in 2019, though we did not find evidence of those donations on the FEC website. 

For further reading, Snopes examined in 2021 whether Trump directly incited the attack on the Capitol in his Jan. 6 speech.

Claim:

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that “our ultimate goal” is to give citizenship to migrants who already crossed a border into the U.S.

Rating:

Context

Schumer truly said this days following the November 2022 midterm elections, specifically during a news conference about protecting Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals legislation. This week, social media users sharing his remark as a quote or video failed to mention that he said it almost four years ago. For example, one popular user misleadingly posted the matter as “BREAKING” and that Schumer “just” said it.

Less than a month away from the midterm elections on Nov. 3, people shared a rumor claiming U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that “our ultimate goal” is to give citizenship to millions of migrants who already crossed a border into the U.S.

For example, on Tuesday, a popular X user posted (archived), “Sen. Chuck Schumer: ‘Our ultimate goal’ is to give every illegal alien citizenship.”

(@LeadingReport via X)

On the same day, another popular user on Facebook posted (archived) a photo of Schumer with the word “BREAKING!” and police car light emojis, with a text caption reading, “BREAKING: Sen. Chuck Schumer just that ‘Our ultimate goal’ is to give every illegal alien citizenship. We knew this was their strategy and why they wanted open borders! Remember this when you vote!”

(David J Harris Jr. via Facebook)

Others shared videos of Schumer appearing to make the same comment, including on Facebook (archived), Threads (archived) and X (archived).

The videos show Schumer talking behind microphones outside the Capitol in Washington, surrounded by people who at one point cheer him on. He speaks about protecting “Dreamers,” a reference to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — a federal immigration policy allowing some immigrants who came to the U.S. as children to receive temporary protection from deportation and eligibility for a renewable work permit:

Now more than ever, we’re short of workers. We have a population that is not reproducing on its own with the same level that it used to. The only way we’re going to have a great future in America is if we welcome and embrace immigrants, the “Dreamers” and all of them, because our ultimate goal is to help the “Dreamers” but get a path to citizenship for all 11 million or however many undocumented there are here.

In sum, Schumer truly said this. He made the remark in November 2022 as part of an effort to urge the Senate to pass protections for “Dreamers” during a lame-duck session of Congress, prior to the start of a fresh session in the new year. Users omitted that month and year from their posts.

Snopes emailed Schumer’s office to ask if he still believed in what he said in the video, if he meant Democrats or “Dreamers” were the ones who had the “ultimate goal” he described and if he wished to share a statement responding to users reposting his comment. We will update this article if we receive further information.

More of Schumer’s remarks

Schumer spoke about “our ultimate goal” and “Dreamers” on Nov. 16, 2022. He began his thoughts as follows (bolded emphasis ours, notes section from users’ posts):

I believe in this so much. I believe in it in a personal basis because I know “Dreamers” who have been such great people here in America and who have just struggled every time they get a phone call, every time they walk down the street, they’re worried, will someone grab them and take them away. So that’s personal about them and what they have done. But I also believe in it as an overall, as an American who wants to see our country be stronger because immigrants make us stronger now more than ever.

Now more than ever, now more than ever, we’re short of workers. We have a population that is not reproducing on its own with the same level that it used to. The only way we’re gonna have a great future in America is if we welcome and embrace immigrants, the “Dreamers” and all of them because our ultimate goal is to help the “Dreamers” but get a path to citizenship for all 11 million or however many undocumented there are here, and we will be pursuing that in the next Senate, in the next Senate, the comprehensive immigration reform. Right now, our focus is on “Dreamers” and we retain the Senate.

Schumer later closed his comments, saying, “We will not stop fighting till we get a fix for DACA, a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and a pathway to citizenship for all undocumented.” More of the event is available to watch on C-SPAN and YouTube.

Senate Democrats ultimately failed to secure the 60 votes needed to pass the bipartisan immigration deal before the end of that year.

For further reading, we previously reported the untrue claim that Schumer had said in 1996, “The No. 1 reason people come to the U.S. illegally is to defraud systems like Social Security and I want to stop it.”

Sources

Claim:

A video posted in October authentically depicts a man leading a group of Arkansas farmers in praying for “more Mexicans” to keep farms running.

Rating:

Context

The visuals in the footage have an authentic origin, but the audio has been edited to significantly change the meaning of the prayer.

On Oct. 4, a social media user posted a video purportedly depicting a man leading a group of Arkansas farmers in prayer, asking “baby Jesus” for “more Mexicans” to replace the “Mexicans we had deported” to save their farms.

The user posted the footage to Facebook (archived) and Instagram (archived). The audio seemingly shows the man leading the prayer saying:

Dear Baby Jesus, please help us. We’re losing our farms. We know we sent all the Mexicans away. Dear Lord, please send us some more Mexicans to replace the Mexicans we had deported. We’re going to lose our farms; please, Baby Jesus and all things holy. Amen.

 

The clip spread amid numerous reports of rising prices and trade wars impacting U.S. farmers.

In short, the visuals in the video have an authentic origin, but the audio has been edited to significantly change the meaning of the prayer. Therefore, we rate the audio as fake.

The authentic footage originates from a broadcast by KATV 7, a TV news station in Little Rock, Arkansas. The channel posted the segment to YouTube on Sept. 2, 2025 (archived), more than a year earlier than when the edited clip was circulating. It shows hundreds of Arkansas farmers in a school gymnasium seeking the federal government’s help regarding their financial struggles.

At about 2:24, the video cuts to a man leading the farmers in prayer. He can be heard saying:

Farmers, in my opinion, dear Lord, and it’s only my opinion, are closer to you than anyone else on this Earth because we deal with your Earth every day. Dear Lord, we’re hurting, dear Lord. We can’t help what’s happened to us.

According to KATV 7’s article about the event, also published on Sept. 2, 2025, the farmer then said, “We need help, dear Lord.”

Another piece of evidence that the “more Mexicans” iteration of the clip is edited is the quality of its audio. The prayer in the edited version is sharp, clear and lacking an echo. Inside a school gymnasium, the audio of the farmers praying should, in reality, feature an echo, like the man’s voice does in the original footage.

Both Facebook and Instagram identified the audio as original to Aaron Beltrán, the person who appeared to first post the edited clip on both platforms.

Snopes reached out to Beltrán to ask whether he originally edited and posted the manipulated video, if the voice is his own and if the content was meant to be satirical. We will update this story if we receive a reply.

For further reading, we addressed a claim that U.S. President Donald Trump said Iran “can take out” Los Angeles and San Diego.

 

Early voting in the U.S. midterm elections is underway. Voters are deciding which party will control Congress, as well as numerous state legislatures and governors’ offices. Snopes’ fact-checkers are flagging rumors surrounding the election, debunking false statements by candidates and suspicious voter fraud claims with nonpartisan research and expert sources. Join our effort to keep this election fact-focused by becoming a Snopes member.

As the 2026 midterm elections near, misinformation from election cycles past lies poised to reappear online. 

For example, Snopes has previously reported on so-called “ballot drops,” which is when a large number of votes suddenly changes the outcome of an election.

Though “ballot drops” generally have specific and legitimate explanations that we will cover below, prominent figures such as U.S. President Donald Trump have attempted to frame them as examples of election fraud. 

During the vote count for the 2020 presidential election that former President Joe Biden won, Trump suggested (archived) on X that “ballot dumps” lost him several states where Republicans had been leading:

Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key States, in almost all instances Democrat run & controlled. Then, one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted. VERY STRANGE, and the “pollsters” got it completely & historically wrong!

Two years later, after the 2022 midterm elections, PolitiFact reported that the businessman Mike Lindell, then a highly visible Trump supporter, spread a number of graphs he claimed showed election fraud in the form of “ballot drops” that helped Democrats overtake Republicans in a number of races.

Despite the persistence of the “ballot drop” election fraud theory, sudden spikes in votes during ongoing counts usually have specific, legitimate explanations. Though it can appear that a lot of votes suddenly “enter” a count when a vote spike happens, it’s important to remember that those votes have been processed and counted by elections officials to verify they came from real, registered voters. 

The fact that a batch of votes is submitted to a count all at once reflects normal election procedures and is not in itself a sign of fraud, even if those votes lean heavily toward one party or the other.

Why do vote spikes happen?

In the 2020 presidential election and the 2022 midterm elections, clerical errors caused some vote spikes that officials later corrected. Other spikes were the result of election officials in an area that leaned heavily Democratic or Republican registering a large batch of counted votes all at once. 

The timing of vote spikes sometimes has to do with what types of ballots are in a given batch. For example, according to a report by the MIT Election Data + Science Lab (Page 10), Democratic voters were historically more likely than Republican voters to use mail-in ballots, meaning vote spikes that benefit Democratic candidates can happen when election officials start to count and report those ballots.

The Election Integrity Partnership, a nonpartisan coalition that reported on topics it found “demonstrably harmful to the democratic process” during the 2020 and 2022 elections, wrote about “ballot drops” in 2022 after Lindell shared graphs he claimed showed the alleged fraud in action.

The group wrote that vote spikes were “commonplace” but that people often misinterpreted graphs showing the spikes. It gave four main reasons for vote spikes:

• Vote counts are reported in batches and varying intervals.
• There can be delays in counting and tabulating in-person votes.
• Some states legally allow absentee and mail-in ballots to be counted prior to polls being closed, and thus those vote counts may be reported en masse.
• Voting “spikes” can also be caused due to clerical errors and are not limited to any particular political party or individual. 

This article will discuss these four reasons in turn. 

The law and policy institute the Brennan Center for Justice and the legal organization Campaign Legal Center also wrote about the spread of the “ballot drop” theory after the 2020 presidential election. Both organizations pointed to similar legitimate explanations for vote spikes during a count.

Batch reports and count delays

Snopes previously investigated one instance where officials reporting a large batch of counted votes created a “vote spike” that favored a Democratic candidate. On Nov. 18, 2020, we reported that the claim (archived), also shared by Trump, that Biden received a fraudulent “ballot dump” to eventually win Wisconsin was false. 

Rather than a fraudulent “ballot dump,” local media reported that Biden took the lead in Wisconsin when Milwaukee, the most-populous city in the state, reported its “overwhelmingly Democratic” 170,000 absentee votes around 3:30 a.m. Nov. 4.

Wisconsin is one of a few states in the U.S. where, by law, elections officials cannot begin to process mail-in ballots before Election Day, meaning they must verify and count mail-in ballots after polls open. Because counting mail-in ballots requires more verification than ballots filled out in person, this process can take longer, meaning those votes may be reported later in the count.

PolitiFact reported that a vote spike (archived) that appeared to favor Georgia’s Democratic candidate for Senate, Raphael Warnock, in the 2022 general election actually reflected Fulton County, which includes Atlanta, reporting a large batch of votes that skewed Democrat. 

Robert Sinners, a spokesperson for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, reportedly told PolitiFact, “In Georgia, we call a 9 p.m. upload toward one candidate ‘the Atlanta metro has reported.’” Sinners’ statement suggested that if votes from the Atlanta metro area created a vote spike, that was merely due to the city’s large population.

Elections officials in Georgia can process but cannot count any votes before polls close, meaning counts from races in the state can take longer to complete.

PolitiFact reported in 2022 that some — mainly Democrat-voting — cities lagged behind their states in how quickly they finished their counts meaning that in some places, large batches of “blue” (Democratic) votes came in comparably late in the count, which could also cause a legitimate vote spike.

The outlet wrote:

Because large cities are almost uniformly Democratic these days and small-population rural counties are almost always Republican, it’s easy to cast blame for slow counting on partisan factors. But the reality is that a lot depends on simple math.

Along the same lines, as examples from Wisconsin and Georgia show, vote spikes can often be attributed to demographics and math rather than conspiracy.

Mail-in ballots

As seen in Snopes’ report on the election results in Wisconsin in 2020, large batches of mail-in votes can change an election result late in the count. However, the Election Integrity Partnership wrote that mail-in ballots can also appear to give candidates a head start. 

For example, 33 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico allow elections officials to scan, meaning count, mail-in ballots before Election Day, though the results cannot be released before polls close. States that may have already counted some mail-in ballots will be able to release some results very quickly after the close of polls. 

In states that allow early scanning of mail-in ballots, early election-night results could skew Democratic because these voters are more likely to have used mail-in voting. Though this might look like a vote spike, the difference between the candidates will likely narrow as counts come in from areas with more in-person or Republican voters. In this scenario, no candidate is “finding” or “losing” votes. Rather, the early results reflect how an individual state has decided to count its votes.

Clerical errors

If vote spikes aren’t caused by the ballots themselves, they also can be caused by human error. 

For example, in the 2020 presidential election, a county clerk in Shiawassee County, Michigan, accidentally added a zero to Biden’s vote tally, reporting 153,710 votes for the Democrat instead of 15,371.  

The clerk in question, Caroline Wilson, reportedly told Agence France-Presse that officials corrected the mistake shortly after, suggesting that existing systems to catch such incidents were working. Trump went on to win the county after officials corrected the vote tally.

Likewise, in 2022, Rob Farbman, the executive vice president of Edison Research, which provides polling data to media outlets, reportedly told AFP a roughly million-vote spike for incumbent Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois happened because someone at Edison Research “added a 9 at the beginning of Duckworth’s number in Rock Island.” 

The mistake happened after the race had been called for Duckworth, the AFP reported, and Edison Research fixed the mistake shortly after it occurred.

Neither of these mistakes materially affected the result of the races, and both suggested that elections officials and companies such as Edison have systems in place that work to catch and correct vote-tally errors introduced by humans.

The bottom line

If readers encounter “ballot drop” theories as votes roll in during these midterm elections, they should stop and consider whether any of the above reasons might provide a specific, legitimate explanation for an apparent vote spike.

It is also worth remembering that the results reported on election night are never the final, certified results. In most races, media outlets are able to mathematically eliminate one candidate using the information from the counts provided and “call” the race. These media estimates are not, however, final results. 

Rather, elections officials will canvass and audit the counts from election night before certifying the result. This process allows officials another chance to review vote spikes and ensure that they happen for legitimate reasons.

Sources

Claim:

Retired professional U.S. soccer star Megan Rapinoe called for Super Bowl champion and ESPN analyst Jason Kelce’s firing after he said the Washington Commanders’ former team name on TV.

Rating:

A claim that retired professional U.S. soccer star Megan Rapinoe called for Super Bowl champion and ESPN analyst Jason Kelce’s firing began circulating online this week.

Snopes readers searched for references to Rapinoe and Kelce on this website, which led us to consult search engines DuckDuckGo and Google for basic details about why the two names were making the rounds together. We located a popular Facebook post (archived) that appeared on the Empire Sports Facebook page on Oct. 5, reading in part:

MEGAN RAPINOE: Calls for Jason Kelce to be FIRED..

Megan Rapinoe criticized Jason Kelce after he used Washington’s former team name during a live broadcast.

“I know Jason Kelce said that racist name on purpose to create division. He should be fired immediately.”

— Megan Rapinoe

The comments under Empire Sports’ post indicated some people believed Rapinoe truly called for Kelce’s firing.

Other users shared the rumor on Facebook (archived) and Threads (archived), though the original Empire Sports Facebook post earned far more likes, comments and shares than other examples.

In sum, while it’s true Kelce mentioned the old Washington Redskins’ team name during a TV broadcast, Rapinoe did not call for his firing.

The Empire Sports page displays a disclaimer acknowledging it publishes fabricated content of a parodical and satirical nature, reading, “Delivering the Finest of Sports Parodies / Satire / Updates / Insider News & much MORE.” In other words, Empire Sports does not publish authentic news reports.

The aforementioned searches of DuckDuckGo and Google located no news media outlets credibly reporting Rapinoe said any such things about Kelce. Rapinoe’s active Instagram page also did not feature any content about him.

Snopes emailed representatives for Rapinoe and Kelce to ask if either wished to address the popular made-up story. The Empire Sports page didn’t display a Messenger button or any other contact methods.

Purveyors of misinformation and fabricated stories — whether labeled as parody and satire or not — have long wielded Rapinoe’s name and image as politically-fueled engagement bait, whether for social media posts or website traffic, sometimes thinly disguised as satire. Part of the reason for the firestorm of controversy in this instance stems from U.S. President Donald Trump’s comments about Rapinoe, and vice versa.

What Kelce said

On Oct. 4, Kelce served as an analyst during the ESPN-owned NFL Network TV broadcast of the Indianapolis Colts’ 30-13 victory over the Washington Commanders, which took place in London.

A video from that broadcast shows Kelce apologizing to the Washington Commanders after he used the team’s former name. In the clip, Kelce breaks down the Commanders’ defensive coverage, saying, “The Redskins right now are doing a great job of not only staying tight but making the play when the ball is in the receiver’s hand and keeping it short of the sticks.”

Announcer Dave Pasch laughs, telling Kelce he accidentally said Redskins, to which Kelce responds, “Oh my gosh! I almost made it out.” Pasch then says he, Kelce and former Super Bowl MVP Kurt Warner, also working as an analyst, all had a “gentleman’s bet” regarding who would slip up first. Kelce replies, “Well, sorry Washington.”

Snopes has debunked similar pieces of media before, including past satire-labeled rumors suggesting Rapinoe was leaving the U.S. due to a “massive red wave,” going bankrupt and was banned from the Olympic sports.

Sources