MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle was forced to apologize to Tulsi Gabbard after falsely claiming the Director of National Intelligence praised the ‘good friendship’ between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
Appearing on her 11th Hour show on Tuesday, Ruhle delivered the apology live on air after repeating what Gabbard’s office called ‘literal fake news’ during the previous episode.
‘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.
‘We said that world leader was Vladimir Putin. The full interview shows that Gabbard was referring to Trump and Indian Prime Minister Modi. We’ve cleared that up.’
Guest host Ali Velshi made a similar apology during an episode of The Last Word.
Their apologies followed the Associated Press deleting ‘erroneous reporting’ in a story by David Klepper titled: ‘Gabbard Says Trump and Putin are “Very Good Friends” Focused on Strengthening Ties’.
The report was changed to remove the false statement with the editor’s note: ‘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”.’
‘Gabbard was actually talking about Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi,’ the outlet has since added to the bottom of the article.
The headline has since been changed to: ‘Gabbard says Trump is “looking forward to success” ahead of talk with Putin.’
Hellbound and Down 