The Associated Press has long been a trusted provider of news for outlets across the U.S. and beyond, but it has become increasingly clear that its reporting is not immune to the careless mistakes and incorrect claims that plague other mainstream media sources.
Of course, those errors are primarily found in reports that disparage the Trump administration or conservative values in general.
And that was unsurprisingly the case with the AP’s latest gaffe:
As the Daily Caller reported:
The outlet withdrew its story titled, “Gabbard Says Trump And Putin Are ‘Very Good Friends’ Focused On Strengthening Ties,” before publishing a correction clarifying that Gabbard was referring to Trump’s friendship with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the AP announced.
ADVERTISEMENT“This story was updated on Mar. 17, 2025, to delete erroneous reporting that U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin “are very good friends,’” the AP wrote in an editor’s note at the bottom of the story.
A spokesperson for the AP told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the initial report was removed from their site because “it did not meet [their] standards.”
After the initial story’s removal, the AP published a corrected story with Gabbard telling NDTV on Monday that Trump is “looking forward to success” ahead of his upcoming call with the Russian president Tuesday afternoon.
The AP’s apparent lack of fact-checking, not to mention concerns about political bias, fueled significant backlash on social media:
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 media. If this isn’t a clear example of pushing a solely political narrative,… pic.twitter.com/1chFZQqTEd
— Alexa Henning (@alexahenning) March 18, 2025
Hey @Morning_Joe @JoeNBC why did you let your guest, the **US National Editor** of the Financial Times @EdwardGLuce repeat the AP’s now retracted lie that Tulsi Gabbard said Putin and Trump are “very good friends,” with zero correction? pic.twitter.com/rOpLtaynid
— Lauren Marsh (@shuler_lauren) March 18, 2025
And this is the latest black eye for the AP, which was booted from the White House press room early on in Trump’s second term.
“The winning continues here at the White House,” says @PressSec.
“Today, a federal judge right here in Washington, D.C. denied the Associated Press’ emergency request… to restore their privilege of returning to the White House press pool.” pic.twitter.com/f9k96bV2Jd
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 25, 2025
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt clashed with an AP reporter earlier this month on the topic of trade, per Fox News:
“I’m sorry, have you paid a tariff? Because I have,” AP reporter Josh Boak said during an exchange in the briefing room. “They don’t get charged on foreign companies. They get charged on the importers.”
“And ultimately, when we have fair and balanced trade, which the American people have not seen in decades, as I said at the beginning, revenues will stay here, wages will go up, and our country will be made wealthy again,” Leavitt said.
Leavitt called the reporter’s questioning insulting.
ADVERTISEMENT“And I think it’s insulting that you are trying to test my knowledge of economics and the decisions that this president has made. I now regret giving a question to the Associated Press,” she said, moving on to another reporter.
More than a year and a half ago, Gabbard shared her dim view of the news agency:
This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.Tulsi Gabbard: “You remember back when the AP was a trusted news source that would objectively report the news. They have now become the Associated Propaganda.”
pic.twitter.com/XqB3gun4uw— TheBlaze (@theblaze) September 5, 2023
