The Associated Press claimed on Monday that it had learned U.S. aircraft had joined Russian planes in a combat airstrike in Syria, but the resulting news stories taken as gospel from the mainstream media source were debunked as they started spreading in the afternoon.
The AP's false report came after President Donald Trump first called out Time magazine's White House pool reporter for launching false news stories that a bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. had been removed from the Oval Office – an attack on the news media he has since repeated several times.
The AP's false story could be found across the Internet on many media platforms by Monday afternoon, reported the Daily Beast, although the Pentagon had immediately denied a joint air attack had taken place.
“The Department of Defense is not coordinating airstrikes with the Russian military in Syria,” spokesman Eric Pahon told The Daily Beast. “DoD maintains a channel of communication with the Russian military focused solely on ensuring the safety of aircrews and de-confliction of coalition and Russian operations in Syria.”
While Russia did conduct an airstrike in Syria on Monday, a statement issued by the Russian Defense Ministry mentioned nothing about the U.S. being involved.
“On January 23, six Tu-22M3 long-range bombers took off from an airfield located in the territory of the Russian Federation, flew over territories of Iraq and Iran, and carried out an aviation strike on control centers, ammunition and weaponry storages of ISIS terrorists in the Deir ez-Zor province,” said the Russian defense ministry.
Trump criticized Time's Zeke Miller for reporting that he “took down the bust” of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., according to The Hill.
Miller later acknowledged and corrected his mistake. Apparently someone had blocked his view of the statue and he didn't try to verify his big scoop.
Trump publicly shamed Miller while speaking at the Central Intelligence Agency on Saturday.
“They said that ‘Donald Trump took down the bust – the statue of Dr. Martin Luther King.’ But it was right there,” said Trump per The Hill. “So Zeke, Zeke from Time Magazine, writes this story about ‘I took down’ – I would never do that because I have great respect for Dr. Martin Luther King.”
“But this is how dishonest the media is,” Trump said.
Ironically, neither the AP's story nor Miller's press pool report could now even be posted to Snapchat because the photo-sharing social media app issued new “fake news” restrictions requiring content to be fact-checked, per The New York Times.
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