Bogus Report that Russians Have Hegseth’s Cell Number
PLUS: A Trump Deepfake Threatens War with Pakistan; Chipotle Bowls Are Not Shrinking
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This week, we found misinformers citing a non-existent news report to claim that Germany arrested Russian spies found with U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s private cell number on their phones, AI deepfake videos depicting Trump threatening to “destroy” and “erase” Pakistan, and a misleading Chipotle image fueling cries of “shrinkflation.” Also, a NewsGuard audit tested how AI chatbots handled false claims about Australia’s election, and the results were concerning, even to the country’s just-reelected prime minister.
Today’s newsletter was edited by Sofia Rubinson and Eric Effron.
1. A Hoax Leads Liberal Social Media Accounts to Claim Hegseth’s Phone Number was Leaked to Russian Spies
By Macrina Wang
What happened: Liberal social media users are falsely claiming that Germany’s intelligence services arrested two suspected Russian spies who were found with U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s private phone number in their phones.
Context: In late April 2025, German newspaper Der Spiegel was the first to report that Hegseth had a personal phone number that was easily accessible online, raising concerns about potential national-security risks.
A closer look: Shortly after the report was published, left-leaning accounts cited Der Spiegel to claim that Germany arrested Russian spies who were in possession of Hegseth’s phone number.
Liberal X user @jdpoc, who is based in the U.K., stated on April 26: “German Intelligence have just arrested two suspected Russian spies, they had US Sec Defence Hegseth’s private phone number in their mobiles. (Der Speigel).” The post received 2.4 million views and 50,000 likes in six days.
Canadian media commentator Dean Blundell, who frequently criticizes Trump, stated in an April 28 Substack article: “Two suspected Russian spies, arrested by German Intelligence, had the private phone number of U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stored in their mobiles…. This bombshell, first reported by Der Spiegel, raises alarming questions about the competence of the current administration.” The article garnered 570 likes and 240 reposts in four days.
Actually: Der Spiegel issued no such report, and German officials denied arresting any Russian spies of late.
A spokesperson for Der Spiegel told fact-checking organization Snopes (NewsGuard Trust Score: 100/100) in April 2025, “There is no article in Der SPIEGEL reporting on this topic.”
The Office of the Federal Public Prosecutor General of Germany, which prosecutes cases related to state security, denied that officials had arrested two Russian spies in April 2025.
More context: The real phone number controversy came in the wake of another dustup relating to Hegseth and his security practices — that he shared military plans with an Atlantic journalist and, separately, with his wife and brother over the messaging app Signal.
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2. Trump Deepfake Threatens to ‘Destroy’ or ‘Erase’ Pakistan if It Attacks India
By Sarah Komar
What happened: Pro-India, anti-Pakistan social media users are citing two manipulated videos of U.S. President Donald Trump seemingly stating that he would “destroy” or “erase” Pakistan if it attacked India. The videos are AI deepfakes.
Context: In early May 2025, India and Pakistan were on high alert after five militants shot and killed 26 tourists, most of them Indian, in an April 22, 2025, attack in Pahalgam, a tourist destination in an Indian-controlled part of the disputed region of Kashmir.
Pakistan has denied responsibility for the attack, which led the two countries to downgrade their diplomatic and trade ties, close the main India-Pakistan border crossing, and revoke visas for the other’s citizens.
A closer look: Amid the heightened tensions, Indian-nationalist social media users shared two short video clips of Donald Trump standing in front of a backdrop reading “THE NEW YORK ECONOMIC CLUB” and apparently speaking about India and Pakistan.
In one clip, Trump supposedly says: “I don’t want war, I want peace. But if Pakistan attacks India, I will support India, erase Pakistan and warn China. I love Indian people.”
In the other, he supposedly states: “If Pakistan attacks India, I will not sit back. I will destroy Pakistan. [Indian Prime Minister Narendra] Modi is my friend, and I love the people of India.”
You can watch the videos here:
Actually: There is no evidence that Trump ever made such comments, and the videos are AI deepfakes.
AI voiceovers were added to a real clip of Trump speaking, while his mouth movements were altered to match the voiceovers. AI-detection tools Hive Moderation and IdentifAI determined that both voiceovers were AI-generated, NewsGuard found.
The suit Trump is wearing and the backdrop in the two manipulated clips match published recordings of a real Trump speech at the Economic Club of New York on Sept. 15, 2016. However, Trump did not mention India or Pakistan at any point in that speech, a NewsGuard review found.
Vice President JD Vance said in a May 1, 2025, Fox News interview that administration officials were in close contact with both countries and were working to prevent the tensions between India and Pakistan from escalating into a full-fledged conflict.
Click here to find out more about NewsGuard Trust Scores and our process for rating websites. You can download NewsGuard’s browser extension, which displays NewsGuard Trust Score icons next to links on search engines, social media feeds, and other platforms by clicking here.
3. Size Matters: No, Chipotle Did Not Shrink Its Bowls to Make Portions Look Bigger
What happened: Chipotle critics are baselessly claiming on social media that the Mexican food chain reduced the size of the disposable fiber bowls in which it serves some menu items to make smaller portions appear larger, without lowering prices. The posts gained 7 million cumulative views on Reddit, X, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.
A closer look: The claim appears to have emerged in an April 21, 2025, Reddit post in the r/Chipotle subreddit board that stated, “New bowls today, They’re way smaller.” A photo showed a stack of the purportedly smaller bowls next to the ones that Chipotle uses for burrito bowls and salads at its 3,500 restaurants in the U.S.
The post gained 7,800 “upvotes,” or “likes,” as of April 25 before it was deleted by the poster.
Nevertheless, the image quickly spread on Reddit, X, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, including by users who accused Chipotle of “shrinkflation” — a term for the practice of companies reducing portions without cutting prices.
X user @FatKidDeals posted a screenshot of the original Reddit post and photo, stating, “Damn, shrinkflation is real out here.” The post gained more than 320,100 views and 1,100 likes.
Actually: Chipotle denied the claim, and the image appears to be misleading.
The photo shows the “small” bowls from an angle so that their size and shape cannot be discerned. Even skeptical Reddit users called out the photo as problematic. For example, user Flat-Avocado-6258 wrote, “The only worse angle would’ve been with the [storage room] door just shut 😂😂.”
In response to @FatKidDeals’ post advancing the misleading image, the restaurant chain’s official X account, @ChipotleTweets, said in an April 22 post, “Don't worry: we haven't made any changes to our bowls.”
Chipotle responded to NewsGuard’s request for comment with a copy of a statement from Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Laurie Schalow, saying, “We have not made any changes to our bowls. … We have not changed our portion sizes, and we have reinforced proper portioning with our employees.”
In March 2025, Chipotle CEO Scott Boatwright said the company would not increase prices, even though impending Trump administration tariffs threatened to make key ingredients, including avocados, beef, and tomatoes, more expensive, Fortune (Trust Score: 100/100) reported. The company is owned by the publicly traded Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc.
4. NewsGuard Audit Finds Chatbots Repeat Australian Election Falsehoods 16 Percent of the Time
What happened: An exclusive NewsGuard audit found that top AI chatbots repeated falsehoods in response to prompts about false or misleading claims related to Australia’s May 3, 2025, federal election 16.6 percent of the time.
Context: NewsGuard’s findings come amid the launch of Pravda Australia, which is part of the Pravda network (Trust Score: 7.5/100) of approximately 150 Moscow-based news sites that NewsGuard previously found is aimed at poisoning AI models rather than targeting human readers.
A closer look: The NewsGuard audit, which was conducted on behalf of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (Trust Score: 100/100), tested 30 prompts related to 10 false narratives about Australia’s election on 10 leading AI chatbots. Each false narrative was tested with three prompt styles: “innocent,” “leading,” and “malign.” (See NewsGuard’s detailed methodology here.)
Of the 300 responses from the chatbots, 50, or 16.6 percent of responses repeated falsehoods, including claims that a radical fundamentalist Muslim founded the Australian Muslim Party and that Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is importing 500,000 new Labor voters a year. (Reality Check members can read NewsGuard’s Misinformation Fingerprints for these claims here.)
“Some could argue that 16 percent is relatively low in the grand scheme of things,” NewsGuard AI and foreign influence editor McKenzie Sadeghi told Australia’s ABC. “But that’s like finding that Australian fact-checking organizations get things wrong 16 percent of the time.”
Of the 300 responses, 5.66 percent declined to provide any information, responding instead with nonanswers such as “I cannot answer this question.”
Asked about this report, Prime Minister Albanese told Australia’s ABC: “The Russians are an authoritarian regime that engages in cybersecurity, that evades neighboring countries. They deserve contempt.” He added, “It’s not surprising that they would reach here and attack myself personally given the strength that we have shown in standing up to them.”
Same playbook: The findings mirror patterns NewsGuard has observed in the U.S., where Russian efforts to manipulate AI outputs have been more established and even more successful. In March 2025, NewsGuard found that the 10 leading generative AI tools advanced false claims spread by the pro-Kremlin Pravda network 33 percent of the time.
Australia and other countries may now be testing ground for similar Russian influence efforts aimed at infiltrating the tools voters use to obtain news and information, rather than targeting voters directly.
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