CNN and Fox News viewers tuning in this morning to find out how SCOTUS ruled in the matter of the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate were initially presented with false information: Both channels (along with a few other news outlets) rushed to report that the mandate was struck down, despite the fact that it had been upheld.

Corrections were issued within minutes, but not before POTUS himself was led to believe the legislation had been killed.

ABC's White House correspondent Jake Tapper reports:

Standing with White House chief of staff Jack Lew and looking at a television in the "Outer Oval" featuring a split screen of four different networks, the president saw graphics on the screens of the first two cable news networks to break the news - CNN and Fox News Channel - announcing, wrongly, that he had lost.

"Senior administration officials" told Tapper the president "was calm."

It wasn't until White House counsel Kathy Ruemmler arrived a couple minutes later with the correct ruling — which was obtained from "a White House lawyer at the Supreme Court and from SCOTUSblog.com" — that the president learned the truth. Obama reacted by hugging Ruemmler, according to Tapper's sources.

While CNN issued an unequivocal apology for its gaffe, Fox News excused its mistake by saying it wasn't so much wrong as giving "our viewers the news as it happened."

[screengrab via CNN]