The Associated Press has stealthily retracted a story headlined by a fictitious quote attributed to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Oddly enough, the story was about Gabbard's trip to India but headlined, "Gabbard says Trump and Putin are 'very good friends' focused on strengthening ties." The story is embedded below, as the original on the AP site has disappeared, and the syndicated versions are probably doomed to the same fate. 

Gabbard AP Story by streiff on Scribd

The AP has since retracted the story:

The Associated Press has withdrawn its story about U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard saying President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin “are very good friends.” Gabbard was talking about Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The AP will publish a corrected version of the story.

It is very difficult to find an innocent reason for this headline, which came out just in time to be the subject of morning news shows.

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

The fabricated quote is still floating around via AP's syndication program. The correction has gone unnoticed, proving once again that "a lie travels around the world before the truth can get its trousers on."

What makes it so difficult to attribute this to editorial failure is that AP has a history of this nonsense, and all the errors cut in the same direction. This article is less a news story than a real-life information operation designed to resurrect the discredited Russia Hoax of Trump's first term.

The big takeaway is that legacy media operations are hopelessly politicized and deeply dishonest. There is no set of facts where Gabbard's quote about the relationship between Trump and Modi could have accidentally become a reference to Trump and Putin. It was a deliberate decision involving multiple people to move this narrative into the mainstream media. You can't possibly hate these people enough.

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