Although she spent most of her career generally aligned with the Democratic Party, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has become an enemy of the left since leaving the party and joining the Trump administration.
As such, it seems as if mainstream media outlets are shirking their fact-checking responsibilities when it comes to promoting reports that cast Gabbard in a negative light.
The Associated Press is at the center of a recent example after it published a report falsely claiming that Gabbard described Russian President Vladimir Putin as a friend.
Unsurprisingly, MSNBC was eager to disseminate the story, apparently without doing any additional research into the AP’s claim.
When news surfaced that the whole thing was, at best, an embarrassing misinterpretation of Gabbard’s actual remarks, however, network hosts dropped a quick retraction before continuing on with their regularly scheduled partisan commentary.
As the Daily Caller reported:
“Last night, “The Last Night” reported on excerpts of an interview between the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and an Indian TV news network in which she said that Trump was good friends with the world leader. Now we said that world leader was Vladimir Putin, but the full interview was subsequently released and it showed that Gabbard was referring to Donald Trump and the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” guest host Ali Velshi said.
Ruhle made a similar correction during her airtime.
“Last night, we reported on excerpts of an interview between the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard and an Indian TV news network in which she said that Trump was good friends with a world leader,” Ruhle said. “Now we said that world leader was Vladimir Putin, but the full interview shows that Gabbard was referring to Trump and Indian Prime Minister Modi. We cleared that up.”
The rapid-fire mea culpas drew some social media attention:
MSNBC just tripped over their own fake news broomstick, issuing an on-air oopsie after claiming Tulsi Gabbard said Trump was BFFs with Putin. Turns out she meant India’s PM—awkward! Trump’s probably over here like, “I don’t need Vlad’s friendship bracelet when I’ve got Modi on… pic.twitter.com/KohVVpUoKz
— GABRIEL 🪽 (@TheGabriel72) March 19, 2025
Aren't these people even a tad embarrassed? This isn't the first time, and I I have a feeling it won't be the last.
— Stuffed Raccoon (@Stuffed_Raccoon) March 20, 2025
@MSNBC @NBCNews @nbc @NBCUniversal @comcast
Network is a partisan disgrace and continues to discredit themselves.
MSNBC hosts were forced to make on-air corrections to erroneous reports about Tulsi Gabbardhttps://t.co/hFc4si7jM2— ted kirby (@realtedkirby) March 20, 2025
The New York Post covered the initial development involving the AP’s erroneous report:
“AP has removed its story about U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard saying President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘are very good friends’ because it did not meet our standards. We notified customers and published a corrected story with an editor’s note to be transparent about the error,” the Associated Press told Fox News Digital in a statement.
Alexa Henning, Gabbard’s deputy chief of staff, addressed the headline on X.
“The @AP is total trash. DNI @TulsiGabbard was referring to PM Modi & President Trump and this is the headline they publish. This is why no one trusts the maliciously incompetent and purposefully bias [sic] media. If this isn’t a clear example of pushing a solely political narrative, then nothing is,” Henning wrote.
Here’s some additional coverage of the MSNBC retractions:
Join the conversation!
Please share your thoughts about this article below. We value your opinions, and would love to see you add to the discussion!