Updated Feb. 14, 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.
9. 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.
8. ‘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.
7. 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.
6. 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.”
5. 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.
4. 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.
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.”
3. 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.
2. 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.
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.”
