Multiple MSNBC hosts issued on-air corrections on Tuesday for falsely reporting that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said President Donald 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.
MSNBC set the record straight last night and corrected false reporting about DNI Tulsi Gabbard. pic.twitter.com/b7MZEW1zwj
— Alex Pfeiffer (@Pfeiffer47) March 19, 2025
MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle read a correction on air Tuesday night.
“Before we go though, 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. We said that world leader was Vladimir Putin, but the full interview shows that Gabbard was referring to Trump and Indian Prime Minister Modi. Clear that up,” Ruhle said.
The network’s Ali Velshi read the same correction an hour earlier during a different MSNBC news show.
“Alright quick note, last night ‘The Last Word’ reported on excerpts of an interview,” Velshi began before reading the same statement as Ruhle.
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. Democrats have continued to criticize Trump’s approach to Russia over the first two months of his second term.
