After the media got caught distorting President Trump’s comments labeling murderous MS-13 gang members “animals” as an attack on all immigrants, on Thursday afternoon, MSNBC only briefly corrected the record before immediately blaming the President for press “confusion” on the topic given his history of saying “incendiary and racist things” in the past.

“President Trump lashing out during an immigration roundtable at the White House and stirring controversy over his harsh rhetoric toward immigrants, branding them ‘animals,’” anchor Andrea Mitchell proclaimed during her 12:00 p.m. ET hour show. Moments later, she begrudgingly offered a clarification: “But the White House now says he was referring to the criminal immigrant gang MS-13, not to all immigrants. Though he didn’t say so. He certainly didn’t make that clear.”

Turning to political analyst Elise Jordan, Mitchell sneered: “Elise, whether you’re talking about MS-13 or not, or all immigrants, he’s certainly used the animal phrase quite liberally and frequently when talking about illegal immigrants.”

Jordan actually explained that the context of the President’s remarks was clear when looking at the full discussion in the White House meeting, beyond the seconds-long clip that Mitchell played: “I read the transcript and I do actually give him the benefit of doubt on this one because it did seem to be in reference to MS-13, which is a horrible gang that machetes are their primary use of warfare and they’ve preyed on minors.”

However, the former Bush administration official still decided that Trump was at fault for the media mistake: “So that said, the reason that I feel the comments were incendiary is because he’s said so many other things in the past that were really inappropriate and horrible....it’s such a contentious media environment because he has had so much racially charged language that this was, I feel like, blown a little bit out of proportion when it was about MS-13.”

At the top of the 1:00 p.m. ET hour, even after the corrections made by Mitchell and Jordan, anchor Craig Melvin still breathlessly hyped the story: “‘Animals,’ that’s how the President of the United States described some who come across the border illegally....We’ll also be reminding you of some of the other incendiary and racist things that this president has said.”

Minutes later, Melvin admitted that the reporting on the controversy wasn’t accurate:

The Associated Press deleted a tweet a short time ago about the remark because apparently there’s been some confusion over whether the President was talking about all immigrants or whether he was talking about MS-13 gang members specifically.

Correspondent Peter Alexander, awaiting the White House daily press briefing, added: “To be clear, yesterday, when the President was hosting a series of leaders...he was reacting to another individual in the room who brought up the issue of MS-13 gang members.”

But then, like Jordan earlier, the reporter declared: “But broadly, he has spoken unsparingly in terms of his criticism of immigrants who have come into the United States from Mexico in the past....obviously this just sort of underscores the fierce language the President often embraces when speaking about topics like illegal immigration...”

After making it clear once again that President was talking about violent gang members, later in the same hour, Melvin inexplicably grilled Republican Congressman Carlos Curbelo about the issue: “But first, the President there in his own words branding some undocumented immigrants as ‘animals.’ Here is an opportunity to denounce it, Congressman. What say you?”

Curbelo reiterated the same facts that Melvin had told viewers only minutes beforehand: “Craig, I wasn’t at that meeting. My understanding is that this discussion was about MS-13 gang members.” Given that Melvin clearly already knew that, why did he waste time asking the question?

Finally, nearing the end of the hour, the host teed up former Congressman and Trump critic David Jolly to predictably blast the President. The liberal Republican ranted:

Yeah, so listen, this is a product of the President’s rhetoric since the day he became a candidate, when it comes to immigration. And this issue with MS-13, look, give the President a concession on that. Perhaps he was calling only gang members animals. And in that case, MS-13 is a really bad group, maybe that’s fair. The question in most American’s mind though, is this is a president whose policies separates families at the border, separate women from children, pull people out of their homes, deport them. And so the notion, when the President talks about the border, I think the anxiety most people feel is one of a president whose policy is so hardline that it actually looks over part of the goodness of the country. And those questions will always linger with this president.

The liberal media became so obsessed with the false narrative of Trump calling all illegal immigrants animals that MSNBC journalists could not let the story go, even as it was proven to be untrue by multiple sources.

Here are excerpts of the May 17 coverage on Melvin’s show: