Multiple MSNBC hosts were forced to issue on-air corrections after they pushed false smears about President Donald Trump’s Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
They issued the corrections Tuesday after pushing fabricated claims that Gabbard has said Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin “are very good friends.”
The correction appears to stem from a recently retracted Associated Press story, which claimed Gabbard said Trump and Putin “are very good friends.” The AP later corrected their reporting to clarify that Gabbard was actually referring to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, not Putin.
The network’s Ali Velshi read a correction on Tuesday night.
“Alright quick note, last night ‘The Last Word’ 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.
“We said that world leader was Vladimir Putin.
“But the full interview was subsequently released and it shows that Gabbard was referring to Donald Trump and the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi.”
MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle read the same correction on air an hour later during a different MSNBC news show.
“Before we go though, last night we reported on excerpts of an interview,” Ruhle began before reading the same statement as Velshi.
“We cleared that up,” she added.
Neither of the anchors apologized for the “error,” however.
WATCH:
In a statement on the error, the Associated Press said it had “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.”
An updated version of the story now includes a note at the bottom saying the story was updated to correct “erroneous reporting.”
Gabbard made the remark during a visit to India for a conference in New Delhi.
“With President Trump’s leadership in the United States, of course, Prime Minister Modi’s longstanding leadership here in India, we have two leaders of our two great countries who are very good friends and who are very focused on how we can strengthen those shared objectives and those shared interests,” she said.
Trump’s first presidency was dogged by years of false claims about his supposed ties to Russia.
MSNBC was central in spreading those false claims.
Democrats have continued to criticize Trump’s approach to Russia over the first two months of his second term.
It comes as Trump seeks to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.
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