• Snopes
  • Posts
  • Snopes Digest Issue #111: Trump-Musk feud, Bruce Springsteen — and more

Snopes Digest Issue #111: Trump-Musk feud, Bruce Springsteen — and more

Here's what's happening inside the Snopes newsroom

Author

Izz LaMagdeleine
June 11, 2025

June 11, 2025・Issue #111

1. Behind the Snopes: Trump & West Point graduation

Let's talk about what's going on with Snopes: the newsroom, the products, the people, and everything and anything that makes Snopes, Snopes. This month, Senior Reporter Jordan Liles detailed how he reported two fact checks about President Donald Trump’s graduation speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

At the end of last month, President Donald Trump delivered the commencement address at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York. However, the seemingly standard act of a U.S. president delivering a graduation speech at one of several military branch schools soon turned into a larger story.

For Snopes’ first fact check related to the graduation, we looked at whether he truly broke a presidential tradition dating back to at least George W. Bush. by leaving early. Videos hosted by C-SPAN and YouTube, as well as photos hosted by former presidents’ archived websites, proved invaluable in our efforts to establish whether past presidents practiced the tradition of staying for diploma ceremonies at least once a year.

Snopes’ second fact check, an unexpected one after finishing the first story, examined a rumor claiming West Point cadets secretly came to an agreement before the ceremony to refuse to shake Trump’s hand. A close, careful look at a wealth of evidence found no proof of cadets forming an alliance in defiance of Trump. These stories stood as a solid example of establishing every possible available data point before coming to any conclusions about online rumors.

Keep Snopes Debunking

We need your continued support to continue our fact-finding mission.

2. Fact-Checking Highlight: Bruce Springsteen

From Reporter/Editor Caroline Wazer:

During a concert in Manchester, United Kingdom, on May 14, 2025, music legend Bruce Springsteen delivered a forceful criticism of the U.S. government, saying it was “currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration.

Over the following days, U.S. President Donald Trump used his social media platform Truth Social to fire back at Springsteen, calling him “a pushy, obnoxious JERK” and suggesting Kamala Harris, Trump’s opponent in the 2024 presidential election, broke campaign finance laws by having Springsteen perform at a rally.

The clash between the Boss and the president led to a flurry of emails and site searches from readers about Springsteen-related rumors — some true, some not so much. Here’s a selection:

3. Overheard at Snopes

We look into a lot of weird stuff at Snopes. We imagine it's very interesting to be a fly on the wall, so we wanted to give you a look at some of the things we have to say when fact-checking.

Overheard: Now that the Friday bee dump is taken care of

— David Emery, Editor - Standards and Trust

4. Since We Last Met

From Executive Editor/Managing Editor Doreen Marchionni:

Snopes' newsroom employees were coming to the end of our quarterly all-hands meeting with CEO Chris Richmond last Thursday afternoon when rumors exploded about an online feud between President Donald Trump and his former adviser Elon Musk. (Hat tip to Reporter/Editor Caroline Wazer and Senior Reporter Jordan Liles for first spotting it.)

We quickly scanned the web for trending news, then dove into fact-checking the hottest feud claims as quickly as we could without sacrificing accuracy or fairness. Each member of the team played a unique role in our coverage; we couldn’t do this work without them. As always, we're also grateful to you for your support in moments like these. We couldn't do this without you, either.

Mental Health Break

Snopes investigates some grim and depressing claims, so we know how important it is to your mental health to see something silly, funny, or just plain heartwarming. Here are some links that made us smile.

5. Snopes-worthy Media

What Snopes is paying attention to across the web.

— Steven Lee Myers, New York Times

— Christos Gavalas, Bulgarian-Romanian Observatory of Digital Media

— Israel Daramola, Defector

Thanks for reading this edition of the Snopes Digest. We send new issues of the newsletter every month, so please add this email address to your white list and keep an eye out for the next issue.

Have feedback or a story idea you want to share?