Updated June 10, 2025.
Americans who lived through President Donald Trump’s first term in office are no strangers to legacy media hoaxes. From Russia collusion to the “very fine people” lie, the bevy of dishonest smear campaigns were too numerous to count.
Now, with Trump back in the White House for his second term, the media are once again back to deploying their same dirty tricks. Here’s the definitive list of all the hoaxes these so-called “journalists” have run to undermine Trump and his administration.
31. Summer of Love 2.0
Legacy media went all out to whitewash leftist agitators rioting in opposition to immigration enforcement in Los Angeles, California. As The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd reported, “Corporate media quickly realized they [couldn’t] defend the violence and anti-American symbolism defining the deportation resistance, so they did their best to downplay and even deny it — even as it heats up in areas outside of LA.“
From CNN to The New York Times, these media hacks attempted to present these destructive demonstrations as normal, peaceful protests — despite the exact opposite being true.
30. Blue Suit Scandal
The New York Times published an entire article dedicated to criticizing Trump for wearing a suit that allegedly made him stand “out in a sea of world leaders and famous faces who were dressed in customary black” at Pope Francis’ funeral. Other outlets quickly caught on to calling Trump out for “breaking dress code.” One CNN guest even tried to link the outfit to claims that the president has lost weight.
A zoomed-out photo of the mass mourning event shows several world leaders and officials in the same blue attire Trump donned.
29. Hegseth’s ‘Makeup Studio’
CBS News claimed in late April that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered a “makeup studio installed at Pentagon.” Hegseth called the story “totally fake.” The Department of Defense also noted that the changes were made to a green room using “existing inventory.”
28. Lifting Russian Energy Sanctions
Politico claimed in an April 23rd article that the Trump administration was considering “lifting sanctions on Russian energy assets, Nord Stream.” Both Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff disputed the anonymously sourced assertion.
27. Vance’s Vatican Visit
Days after Vice President J.D. Vance visited Vatican City alongside his family, the left-wing Daily Beast tried to concoct a pathetic smear campaign against the Ohio native.
The outlet’s Liam Archacki ran a hit piece titled “JD Vance Ripped for Embarrassing Gaffe During Vatican Visit,” which contained comments from social media users attacking the vice president for having his photo taken with his son inside the famed Sistine Chapel. Seemingly eager to smear Vance, Archacki cited the Vatican’s visitor policies, which states, “In the Sistine Chapel it is forbidden to take photographs or films with any type of electronic equipment.”
Not until the article’s 13th paragraph, however, are readers informed that “there is a track record of political figures being photographed in the chapel, including Michelle Obama, as well as Bill and Hillary Clinton.” Archacki also waited until the 14th paragraph to tell readers, “A source close to the situation told the Daily Beast that the Vatican gave special permission for the photographer in question to take pictures inside the Sistine Chapel.”
26. The ‘Maryland Father’
Media propagandists went into full freakout mode after the Trump administration deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an El Salvadorian national and alleged MS-13 gang member, back to El Salvador.
As The Federalist’s Brianna Lyman explained, Abrego Garcia “filed an asylum claim six months” after being first detained in 2019, which resulted in a judge ruling that he “could not be deported to El Salvador.” As noted by the Article 3 Project’s Will Chamberlain, however, deportation of Abrego Garcia to “[a]ny third country would be sufficient.”
The matter ended up at the Supreme Court, which upheld part of a lower court order instructing the administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from El Salvador. The country’s president, Nayib Bukele, recently told reporters there are no current plans to release the El Salvadorian national from prison.
Rushing to Abrego Garcia’s defense, legacy media grossly characterized the illegal alien and alleged MS-13 gang member as a “Maryland man” in an apparent attempt to deceive Americans into thinking the Trump administration mistakenly deported a U.S. citizen.
“By convincing Americans that illegal aliens are indistinguishable from citizens — or fathers from Maryland — the left is hoping to delegitimize any attempt to enforce our immigration laws while making Americans feel morally conflicted about their right to do so,” Lyman wrote.
25. Space Force Colonel Firing
Following J.D. Vance’s March visit to a U.S. military base in Danish-controlled Greenland, in which he criticized Denmark for “underinvest[ing]” in the territory’s people and security, the Space Force colonel overseeing the installation sent out an email to base personnel undermining the White House’s message. While Col. Susan Meyers was removed from command after the incident, the media rushed to cover up the reason for her dismissal.
Article headlines from outlets such as The Washington Post and The New York Times failed to disclose why Meyers was relieved of her position and her apparent willingness to undermine the White House’s foreign policy objectives regarding Greenland.
“U.S. Military Removes Commander of Greenland Base After Vance Visit,” the Times’ headline reads.
24. PR on X Only
Wired claimed in a “scoop” on April 11 that the Social Security Administration “will be shifting its public communication exclusively to X.” The Trump administration called the claim “absolutely false.”
“Pure Fake News garbage from Wired,” the Rapid Response 47 account on X posted.
23. Veterans Affairs ‘Disinformation’
CNN’s Brian Todd published a story with claims from anonymous sources that the Department of Veterans Affairs was planning to have its call center phone lines switch to automated responses from actual live agents. Citing the unnamed individuals, Todd claimed this is “because the agents who handle the calls are set to be laid off.”
“Under the proposal, sources said the agency would move to automation, reducing the need for live agents,” the report reads.
According to VA Secretary Doug Collins, however, the allegations are “false.”
In an X thread, the Trump appointee described how Todd reportedly reached out to his team late last week, “claiming to have a scoop about a proposal to ‘automate VA call centers.’”
“In reality, no such plans exist. Brian’s scoop was based on false, deliberately leaked ‘information’ from people who aren’t involved in our planning process,” Collins wrote. “In other words, Brian was the target of a disinformation operation designed to generate fake news.”
Collins claimed that his team warned Todd his information was inaccurate, but that the CNN reporter went on to publish the “false story anyway.” He further contended that Todd and CNN have declined to retract the story, despite his team’s insistence the allegations contained within it are untrue.
22. Signalgate
The Atlantic’s head hoaxer Jeffrey Goldberg published an article in late March alleging he was added to a sensitive chat between some of the Trump administration’s cabinet about military strikes in Yemen.
Democrats and their allies in the corporate media immediately claimed that the chat screenshots, published by Goldberg, were evidence that high-level officials were sabotaging U.S. national security and defense operations by swapping classified information and “war plans” on the encrypted communications app Signal. Some outlets went so far as to call for chat participants, such as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to resign.
Not only has Signal been used by both Republican and Democrat administrations to host sensitive conversations, but chat documents also show Hegseth referring to a more detailed, classified conversation about the strikes that would take place on a channel aside from Signal. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard confirmed to Congress that none of the material in the group text containing Goldberg contained classified material.
21. Elon Musk’s Pentagon Visit
The New York Times ran an article containing claims from anonymous sources that the Pentagon was going to brief Elon Musk “on the U.S. military’s plan for any war that might break out with China” during a March 21 meeting with the SpaceX CEO. Originally titled, “Musk Set to Get Access to Top-Secret U.S. Plan for Potential War With China,” the piece’s headline now reads, “Pentagon Set Up Briefing for Musk on Potential War With China.”
According to President Donald Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell, however, the Times’ report isn’t accurate. While the president and the two DOD officials confirmed Musk would be visiting the Pentagon, they emphatically denied that the X owner would be briefed on the U.S. military’s plans regarding potential future conflicts with Beijing.
“Elon Musk is just coming over here for a visit,” Parnell said during a Friday Fox News interview. “We want a guy like Elon Musk in the Defense Department to help us come up with creative solutions to the problems that we face of the day. But this article, this article is ridiculous. It’s fake, and I can confirm that on the record.”
20. Trump and Putin are ‘Very Good Friends’
The Associated Press was forced to retract a hatchet job that falsely claimed National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard said Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin “are very good friends.” As later acknowledged by the outlet, “Gabbard was talking about Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”
19. Trump’s Bed
The Daily Beast published an article on March 17 with a headline that insinuated President Donald Trump offered his bed to a female political ally behind First Lady Melania’s back.
“‘Don’t Tell Melania’: Trump Once Offered Rising MAGA Star His Bed,” the headline states.
The Independent gave a little more context to the situation, but still attempted to scandalize what a deeper read into the story shows was an innocent exchange.
“‘Just don’t tell Melania’: Trump once offered an ill Anna Luna his bed as his behind-closed-doors comments are unveiled,” The Independent headline reads.
In reality, the joke Trump told, as alleged in Axios reporter Alex Isenstadt’s new book Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump’s Return to Power, occurred when the then-presidential candidate offered the pregnant GOP Rep. Anna Luna the bed on his private jet because she started to feel ill during a flight in 2023.
“If you need a bed to lay down in, there’s one here on the plane. If you feel sick and you need to lay there, you can lay on it.” Trump then joked, “Just don’t tell Melania. She doesn’t like other women on my bed.”
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung called Isenstadt’s book “a work of fiction.”
18. Eagles’ White House Visit
Corporate media spent the weeks after the Philadelphia Eagles’ Super Bowl LIX blowout casting doubt on whether the professional football team would turn down an invitation to the White House because President Donald Trump is in office.
Outlets such as NPR, USA Today, the U.S. Sun, and Yahoo! claimed that because the Eagles lost the privilege of celebrating at the president’s residence during the first Trump term in 2018, they might not get invited or accept another invitation again. The White House announced on March 11, however, that the team “enthusiastically accepted” the opportunity to keep the D.C. victory tour going.
17. Deportation Orders for ‘Legal Resident’ Grad Student
The New York Times pretended that the Trump administration’s attempt to deport Mahmoud Khalil, an apparent Hamas sympathizing radical and key player in anti-American protests at Columbia University, was unconstitutional due to his status as a legal permanent resident.
An immigration judge, however, ruled that the Trump administration can deport Khalil due to the “potentially serious foreign policy consequences” of letting him stay in the country.
16. Transgender Mice
CNN complained after Trump claimed during his joint address to Congress that the Department of Government Efficiency uncovered $8 million in taxpayer funds devoted to “making mice transgender.” The National Institutes of Health, however, did throw millions of Americans’ hard-earned money in the form of grants at tests on “the Effects of Gender-affirming Hormone Therapy on HIV Vaccine-induced Immune Responses” and other experiments.
CNN eventually removed its characterization of the claim as false, but still printed that it “needs context.”
15. Military ‘Purge’
After Trump removed several pro-DEI military officials from their respective positions, the media leapt into action to frantically declare that the democratically elected president was conducting a “purge” of the force of officials who refuse to commit to his agenda.
“With Pentagon purge, Trump thrusts military into uncharted territory,” the headline of a Washington Post column authored by Dan Lamothe and Missy Ryan reads.
What many of these left-wing hacktivists don’t mention, however, is that it is neither unlawful nor unprecedented for presidents to dismiss military leaders over policy disagreements. For example, as noted by Fox News, Barack Obama fired numerous top Pentagon officials throughout his presidency over reported personal spats, policy differences, and other reasons.
14. New York Times Makes Scandal Out of Dr. Oz Disclosure
The New York Times applied a double standard to President Trump’s nominee for administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Dr. Mehmet Oz, and his financial disclosure filed ahead of a Senate confirmation hearing.
The Times published two stories warning about conflicts of interest related to a series of stocks Dr. Oz holds in companies that he stands to regulate at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The paper relied on “experts” who said the language of the financial disclosure left whether the nominee would divest from the companies an open question. The same language was used by former Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, however, whose financial stake in the electric vehicle company Proterra became a scandal in the Biden administration. The Times never reported on Granholm’s lucrative stock position while she served as secretary of the Energy Department.
13. Bye-Bye, Five Eyes?
The Financial Times published an article in late February asserting, based on anonymous sources, that White House official Peter Navarro wanted “to axe Canada from Five Eyes intelligence group.”
Navarro denied the claim, noting that “they report stories and never name their sources … We would never, ever jeopardize our national security.”
12. DOGE Firings
The same corporate media outlets that cheered the Biden administration’s forced Covid jab mandate, which put thousands of bureaucrats out of work, are filling their pages and TV slots with sob stories about the federal employees fired at President Donald Trump’s direction through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
In an effort to turn the firings into an emotional scandal, the propaganda press pretended the positions at risk were highly specialized and slotted with high-performance “experienced” workers. In reality, many of those laid off were “probationary” employees who were only hired or moved into a certain position in the last one to two years.
In one example, the Washington Post complained that the Trump administration “fired the only locksmith on staff” at Yosemite National Park who had “the keys and the institutional knowledge” to deal with a finicky guest bathroom lock.
Outlets such as CNN also amplified fearmongering that the firings would put American national security at risk for what one disgruntled ex-bureaucrat called “foreign operations.” CNBC argued the bureaucrat purge would negatively affect the economy, specifically in Washington DC.
Americans not only voted for a man who pledged to clean out the Swamp bureaucracy. Recent polling shows voters overwhelmingly agree with DOGE’s “major cuts.”
11. Falsely Claimed VP ‘Pledged’ Russia Sanctions
The Wall Street Journal published an article and subsequent social media post on Feb. 13 claiming Vice President JD Vance, who is in Europe at the Munich Security Conference, “pledged to hit Russia with sanctions and potentially military action if Putin won’t agree to a peace deal that guarantees Ukraine’s independence.”
A transcript of Vance’s remarks to the WSJ, however, shows the VP never pledged anything. While Vance agreed “there are instruments of pressure” such as economic and military “tools of leverage” the U.S. could use to make Russia cooperate, he stressed that Trump “wants to have a productive negotiation, both with Putin and with Zelensky.”
A community note on the WSJ’s X post similarly points out that “JD Vance made no explicit pledge to either sanctions or military actions.”
In his response to the WSJ’s erroneous reporting, Vance emphasized “President Trump is the ultimate deal maker and will bring peace to the region by ending the war in Ukraine.”
“As we’ve always said, American troops should never be put into harm’s way where it doesn’t advance American interests and security. This war is between Russia and Ukraine,” he added.
10. ‘Cast Doubt’ On McConnell Having Polio
After President Donald Trump took questions from reporters in the Oval Office on Feb. 13, 2025, CNN suggested that he had “cast doubt” on Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell’s past Polio diagnosis. “Trump appears to cast doubt on whether McConnell is a Polio survivor,” read an on-screen graphic.
Trump never doubted McConnell’s medical history. In reality, Trump was asked about the senator’s vote against Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services Secretary. “Well, I feel sorry for Mitch,” Trump said, later adding, “He’s not equipped mentally.” After asserting that McConnell, who had reigned as the longest Senate majority leader, had hoped to stay leader but was thwarted by Trump’s opposition, the president said, “Mitch McConnell never really had it. He had an ability to raise money because of his position as leader, which anybody could do.”
By “never really had it,” it was clear Trump was referring to McConnell’s competency, not his Polio diagnosis. But the reporter, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, interjected that “he had polio, obviously,” to which Trump responded that he had “no idea if he had Polio.” Instead of taking the comment as an attempt to get back on topic, Collins accused Trump of “doubting he had Polio,” and a new media hoax was born.
9. A ‘Constitutional Crisis’
Corporate media outlets including MSNBC, Vox, New York Times, NPR, CNN, The Atlantic, Washington Post, and more fueled Democrats’ anti-Trump siege by claiming President Donald Trump’s commitment to following through on his campaign promises is causing a constitutional crisis.
As the White House and other constitutional scholars have pointed out, however, the biggest threat to the U.S. Constitution is not Trump and Vance, but the rise in sweeping nationwide injunctions handed down by partisan judges.
“The real constitutional crisis is taking place within our judicial branch, where district court judges in liberal districts across the country are abusing their power to unilaterally block President Trump’s basic executive authority,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a press conference on February 12.
8. Media Amplify Phony Democrat Attacks on Hegseth’s Housing Repairs
After their leftist Senate colleagues failed to stop his cabinet confirmation, several House Democrats took up their own dishonest smear campaign against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
In a Feb. 7, 2025, memo, Democrat Reps. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida feigned outrage over reported maintenance costs stemming from repairs to a military family housing unit the defense secretary is purportedly going to use during his time in office. The lawmakers claimed these repairs included a $49,000 “emergency” paint job.
Like clockwork, propaganda media outlets such as Bloomberg, Military.com, and Forbes ran with Democrats’ deceptive framing of the matter to make it appear as if Hegseth was needlessly wasting taxpayers’ money. Even Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin regurgitated the lawmakers’ letter without skepticism.
Hegseth fired back in a Feb. 7 post on X, saying that “Any/all house repairs were going to happen no matter who was moving in—and were all initiated by [the Department of Defense].”
“Fake News of the Day (not surprising from Democrats & @JenGriffinFNC; same thing),” Hegseth wrote. “But Dems/Jen don’t care about facts; they’re just Trump haters.”
7. Washington Post Campaigns to Keep Wasting Taxpayer Money at NIH
The Trump administration recently announced a new policy at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to reduce how much money the government pays in “indirect costs” for federally sponsored research. Such costs include facilities and administration expenses paid at a rate negotiated with third-party institutions to support select projects.
“Yet the average indirect cost rate reported by NIH has averaged between 27% and 28% over time,” the NIH said in the agency announcement. “And many organizations are much higher — charging indirect rates of over 50% and in some cases over 60%.”
The Trump administration is capping these costs, which will allow the federal government to fund even more research, but The Washington Post reported that the NIH is “cutting billions of dollars in biomedical research funding.” According to the Post, the cost-saving measure “would imperil” the “universities and medical centers” that receive funding.
“In a social media post, NIH said the change would save more than $4 billion a year, effective immediately,” read the Post. “The note highlighted the multibillion-dollar endowments of Harvard University, Yale University and Johns Hopkins University, implying that many universities do not need the added federal funding.”
According to the NIH, however, “most private foundations that fund research provide substantially lower indirect costs than the federal government, and universities readily accept grants from these foundations.”
In other words, research institutions regularly fund indirect costs at rates exponentially lower than those funded by taxpayers without any issues.
6. DOGE Gone Wild
Clearly upset at the prospect of a downsized federal government, the media launched an all-out disinformation blitz to turn the public against Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
Leftist propaganda outlets such as the Associated Press, NPR, PBS, and NBC News ran stories based on anonymous sources, several of whom claimed that DOGE officials were accessing “classified information” stored by agencies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development. The implication, of course, was that these officials were unlawfully accessing such critical information.
The media also tried to smear DOGE as “young, inexperienced engineers” instead of recognizing them as professionals with relevant experience.
Responding to a PBS reporter on X, who claimed DOGE operatives “attempted to gain access to secure spaces,” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung wrote, “Legitimately FAKE NEWS. Not even remotely true at all.” DOGE adviser Katie Miller similarly poured cold water on the AP’s “classified material” hit, noting on X, “No classified material was accessed without proper security clearances.”
5. Federal Aid Freeze Misinformation
After the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) put out a memo announcing a freeze on certain types of federal grants, Democrats and the media quickly leapt into action to foment a disinformation campaign about how far the directive went. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, were among those who advanced untrue claims that the edict shut down Medicaid funding and monies for other critical industries (hospitals, food banks, etc.).
A White House memo, however, makes clear that programs such as Medicaid, Social Security, SNAP, and other related programs are excluded from the freeze. It specifies that the freeze is limited to programs and activities that promote or endorse “DEI, the green new deal, and funding nongovernmental organizations that undermine the national interest.”
These clear directions weren’t clear enough for media hacktivists, who utilized Democrats’ lies to claim that the administration’s directive created “confusion” among the public.
4. Pete Hegseth Smear Campaign
Seeking to derail his nomination as Trump’s defense secretary, legacy media launched a desperate, last-minute smear campaign against Pete Hegseth that would make state-run media in foreign nations blush.
Outlets like NBC News reported out an affidavit from Hegseth’s former sister-in-law, who claimed the Army veteran engaged in threatening conduct that left his second ex-wife fearful for her “safety.” What NBC and other so-called “news” organizations chose to bury in their coverage, however, was the fact that Hegseth’s ex-wife said the allegations in the affidavit aren’t true.
3. ICE Quotas
The Washington Post claimed in a Jan. 26th article that the Trump administration doled out “quotas to ICE officers to ramp up arrests.” The article’s authors only gave the White House four minutes to comment, according to White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung, who called the report a “fake story.”
2. The Elementary School ICE Raid That Wasn’t
A reporter for The Chicago Tribune claimed on January 24 that ICE showed up to take “immigration action” at a Chicago school “after President Donald Trump took office.” The claim was also echoed by Illinois’ Democrat Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Public Schools officials. It was later confirmed, however, that the so-called Trump-era “raid” was actually an investigation by the U.S. Secret Service into a “threat against a government official.”
1. Elon the ‘Fascist’
It wasn’t long into Trump’s second term when media hacktivists rolled out their disgusting “Trump supporters are Nazis” smear. Outlets such as PBS News grossly mischaracterized a hand gesture by Elon Musk at a post-inauguration event to make it appear as if the X owner was giving a Nazi salute.
The full video of the incident, however, showed that Musk was thanking the crowd of Trump supporters for propelling the 47th president to victory.
“I just want to say thank you for making it happen, thank you,” said Musk, who placed his hand over his heart before pointing it at the crowd. “My heart goes out to you. It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured.”
