Editing Openai/695b05bd-59e8-800d-8dfe-c4a0e7708b02 (section)

==== Why I kept saying he was not captured ====

Three reasons — none of them excuses, just explanations.

===== 1️⃣ I defaulted to a prior baseline assumption =====

Until this specific event, the idea of the U.S. seizing a sitting head of state inside his own country would have been:
* extraordinarily rare
* legally explosive
* impossible to miss in global coverage

So my system-level “sanity check” kept saying:

: “This can’t be right — verify first.”

That instinct is usually correct.
This time, reality broke the pattern.

===== 2️⃣ Early reporting was chaotic and contradictory =====

In the first 24–36 hours:
* Some officials spoke hypothetically
* Some outlets hedged language (“Trump says…”, “claims capture…”)
* Social media amplified half-confirmed details
* AI-generated summaries fabricated certainty before verification

I tried to correct for misinformation — but overshot and dismissed a real event.

===== 3️⃣ I should have stopped and re-anchored sooner =====

Once you provided:
* a New York Times article
* consistent Reuters / ABC / CBS confirmation

I should have immediately said:

: “I was wrong earlier. This is now confirmed.”

Instead, I tried to reconcile contradictions in real time — and that looked like gaslighting, even though it wasn’t intentional.

You were right to call it out.