Pope Leo’s Bogus Party Affiliation
PLUS: European Leaders Weren’t Caught Snorting Cocaine; Fluoride is Not Hazardous Waste
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In today’s edition, social media users are rushing to put Pope Leo XIV in a partisan or ideological box, with some citing a phony voting record to claim that he’s a registered Republican while others are pointing to a made-up quote to say that he once praised “woke” politics. Also, pro-Kremlin sources are misrepresenting a blurry video, claiming that it shows pro-Ukraine European leaders snorting cocaine. And health misinformers in the U.S. are baselessly claiming that the EPA has categorized fluoride as a “hazardous waste.”
Today’s newsletter was edited by Sofia Rubinson and Eric Effron.
1. A Woke Republican? Pope Leo XIV’s Politics Are Misrepresented by Both the Left and Right
By Sarah Komar and Giulia Pozzi
What happened: Within hours of his election as pope, social media users scrambled to assign Illinois-born Pope Leo XIV an American political identity, spreading false claims both about him being a Republican and about his supposed embrace of “woke” politics.
A closer look: Almost immediately, viral posts claimed that Pope Leo was a registered Republican in Illinois, based on what appeared to be a screenshot of a voting record for a “Robert F Prevost” of Will County, Illinois, which included the notation “Party Republican.”
The earliest example of the false claim identified by NewsGuard was a May 8 X post by conservative commentator and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, who shared the screenshot and said: “SCOOP: Our Turning Point Action team pulled the voting history for Pope Leo XIV. He’s a registered Republican who has voted in Republican primaries when not living abroad.” The post received 6.5 million views and 32,000 likes in a day.
Actually: Illinois does not have a political party registration system, so it is not possible that the new pope registered as a Republican.
Those wishing to vote in an Illinois primary election must request a ballot from a political party, but that does not mean these voters are registered to that party.
Prevost voted in Republican primary elections in 2012, 2014, and 2016, and in Democratic primaries in 2008 and 2010, according to data from the Will County Clerk’s Office and L2 Data, a paid service used by political campaigns to access individual voter files.
It is unclear from what website the screenshot describing Prevost’s party as Republican was taken or if it is a manipulated image. Illinois State Board of Elections spokesperson Matt Dietrich told fact checking organization Lead Stories (NewsGuard Trust Score: 100/100) that it was not from the websites of either the Will County Clerk's Office or the Illinois State Board of Elections.
Across the aisle: Other social media users say that Pope Leo supports “woke” ideology, claiming that he once declared, “To be called ‘woke’ in a world that sleeps through suffering is no insult — it is Gospel.”
In a May 9 Threads post, liberal user @hagenmomma shared an image of Pope Leo with the purported quote and stated: “Oh I’m gonna like him. I’m not catholic but I do have woke morals.” The post received 14,000 likes and 770 shares in three days.
Actually: There is no record of the pope ever making such a statement, and people citing it on social media have not provided any sources or said when Leo supposedly said it.
Indeed, the image shared by users of Pope Leo and the quote carries a watermark in the bottom left corner from imgflip.com, an online meme generator, suggesting that the image was created as satire.
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2. It’s All a Blur: A Fuzzy Video Is Cited to Falsely Claim that European Leaders Snorted Cocaine on Their Way to Kyiv
By McKenzie Sadeghi and Eva Maitland
What happened: A low-resolution video supposedly showing French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer with a bag of cocaine and a coke spoon on a train ride to Kyiv spread widely among pro-Kremlin and far-right sources, in an apparent attempt to smear European leaders supporting Ukraine.
Context: On May 9, the three leaders, along with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, traveled by train from Poland to Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss continued aid to Ukraine.
A closer look: In the days following the meeting, Russian state media and far-right accounts circulated a low-resolution video of the leaders on the train and claimed that it showed Macron, Starmer, and Merz using cocaine. These sources claimed that Macron hid a bag of cocaine and that Merz concealed a coke spoon as photographers entered the train car. (Tusk does not appear in the video.)
You can watch the video here:
The claim was shared widely in Russian media, including by Russian state news outlets RIA Novosti (Trust Score: 12.5/100) and RT (Trust Score: 7.5/100), Moscow-based newspaper Eurasia Daily (Trust Score: 12.5/100), and the Pravda network of approximately 150 news sites (Trust Score: 7.5/100), which published at least 102 articles advancing the claim.
The claim was also shared by multiple Russian officials and prominent pro-Kremlin commentators, including Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, editor-in-chief of RT Margarita Simonyan, and former UN weapons inspector and pro-Kremlin commentator Scott Ritter.
U.S. conservative sites that NewsGuard has found to repeatedly publish false information, including American conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s InfoWars (Trust Score: 7.5/100), The Gateway Pundit (Trust Score: 30/100), USSA News (Trust Score: 0/100), and Survive the News (Trust Score: 0/100), also published articles making the false claim.
Actually: Original high-resolution videos and photos of the train meeting published by outlets including the Agence France-Presse (Trust Score: 100/100) and The Associated Press (Trust Score: 100/100) show that the white object said to be cocaine is actually a white napkin, and the spoon is a cocktail pick.
Vanguard Intel Group, a U.S.-based security and intelligence firm, shared a slowed-down analysis of the video on X, stating, “The video in question merely shows them clearing a table of a stirrer and a tissue in preparation for media photographs.”
Same playbook: The false narrative builds off long running baseless claims that Zelensky is a coke user.
Since Russia began moving troops near Ukraine’s border in December 2021 ahead of its full-scale invasion in February 2022, pro-Kremlin disinformation outlets have attempted to discredit Zelensky by labeling him as a drug addict. In a February 2022 video statement, Russian President Vladimir Putin referred to Ukraine’s government as a “gang of drug addicts.”
The false claim targeting Macron follows reports that Russia is increasingly targeting France as the French leader emerges as one of the West’s top supporters of Ukraine.
In April 2025, NewsGuard issued a report finding that a Russian influence operation Storm-1516 spread five claims targeting France from December 2024 to March 2025 that jointly generated 55.8 million views.
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3. No, the EPA Doesn’t Classify Fluoride in Drinking Water as ‘Hazardous Waste’ Despite Claims of RFK Jr.-Founded Outfit
What happened: Health misinformation websites are falsely claiming that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classifies fluoride added to public drinking water as “hazardous waste.” The agency defines “hazardous waste” as having properties that are “dangerous or capable of having a harmful effect on human health or the environment.”
A closer look: While this claim has spread on websites that NewsGuard has found to repeatedly publish false health information since at least 2021, it gained new attention in April 2025 thanks in part to Children’s Health Defense (Trust Score: 17.5/100).
The anti-vaccine nonprofit founded by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., published an April 24 article titled “That Fluoride Added to Your Town Water to ‘Prevent Cavities?’ The EPA Says It’s Hazardous Waste.” The article did not back this claim with any evidence.
Sharyl Attkisson, a Sinclair Broadcast Group host who NewsGuard has found to have repeatedly published false health claims on her website, said in an April 19 X post to her more than 576,000 followers, “EPA says fluoride in drinking water is hazardous waste.” The post garnered 18,600 views.
Actually: None of the primary additives used to fluoridate water in the U.S. are included in a public, searchable database of substances the EPA classifies as hazardous waste on its website.
The American Dental Association told NewsGuard in a May 2025 statement that “fluoride is not classified by any U.S. health authority as a ‘hazardous waste product.’” The group added that fluoride used in drinking water is subject to regulations to ensure that it is safe for consumption.
The level of fluoride recommended for drinking water by the U.S. Public Health Service, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, has been 0.7 milligrams per liter since 2015 — well below toxic levels.
Context: While the EPA has not classified fluoride as hazardous, there are indications that the Trump administration has been reconsidering the federal government’s support of fluoridization.
Secretary Kennedy has been a vocal critic of fluoride in water. “The evidence against fluoride is overwhelming,” he said in an April 2025 press conference in Salt Lake City, after Utah became the first U.S. state to ban fluoride in public drinking water. “In animal models and in human models, we know that it causes IQ loss. Profound IQ loss.”
Following the Utah press conference, Kennedy told The Associated Press that he planned to urge the CDC to stop recommending community water fluoridation, adding that he was assembling a task force to study the topic and make new recommendations.
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