These days, it's extra sweet to see mainstream media outlets forced to retract their asinine narratives and stories, and that's exactly what happened this week with the Associated Press.

The outlet, which is supposed to be neutral and non-partisan, was quick to run a story regarding a statement it claimed Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard made about President Donald Trump's "friendship" with Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

However, the published story was false. And the AP was forced to retract it earlier this week, Fox News reported.

A link to the story on the outlet's website, as of the time of this publication, read "page unavailable."

What happened?

The original story published by the AP claimed that Gabbard said Trump and Putin are "very good friends." Gabbard was speaking of another world leader -- definitely not Putin.

"The Associated Press has withdrawn its story about U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard saying President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin 'are very good friends.'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," the AP noted.

The AP published a new story correcting the record to accurately reflect what Gabbard actually said.

At the end of the article, there was an editor's note informing readers that the original article had been deleted due to "erroneous reporting."

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

In a statement to Fox News, the AP wrote, "AP has 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."

Social media reacts

Users across social media reacted to the AP's very obvious and laughable mistake.

"They need to be held accountable and that’s not a buried retraction!" one X user wrote.

Another X user wrote, "Yeah, my time is precious, and I prefer not to waste it, so I skip fake news propaganda, like AP."

Needless to say, Gabbard and Trump probably had a good laugh about it.