Abstract
The escalating challenge of misinformation, particularly in the context of political discourse, necessitates advanced solutions for fact-checking. We introduce innovative approaches to enhance the reliability and efficiency of multimodal fact-checking through the integration of large language models (LLMs) with Retrieval-augmented Generation (RAG)- based advanced reasoning techniques. Our approaches improve the accuracy of veracity predictions and the generation of explanations over current fact-checking approaches by up to 15-17 %. By employing multimodal LLMs adept at analyzing both text and images, this research advances the capability of automated systems in identifying and countering misinformation.