The return of “covfefe”: Trump revives his mysterious lingo in morning tweet
Donald Trump tweets out what may be charitably described as nonsensical blather on a daily basis, but one of his most literally unintelligible tweets ever was the infamous “covfefe” tweet of May of 2017.
Readers of Trump’s Twitter feed were truly baffled when he sent out a post that read in its entirety: “Despite the negative press covfefe”.
The tweet led to days of speculation on the meaning of the word and the seemingly incomplete thought that Trump was trying to transmit.
Many proffered the idea that the president simply misspelled “coverage” and had accidentally sent the tweet without realizing it.
The tweet was deleted several hours later, but Trump — a man known for never admitting his own ability to make mistakes and take responsibility for them — rather than simply owning up to a typo and a careless posting, instead posted a new tweet the next morning that only deepened the mystery behind the newly-coined word.
Trump’s then-Press Secretary Sean Spicer reinforced the president’s implication that the newly-invented word actually had a meaning.
“I think the president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant,” Spicer told reporters at the time.
Media attention soon moved elsewhere, but “covfefe” lived on in internet lore as a symbol of Donald Trump’s social media gaffes and his difficulties with the English language.
This morning after a year and a half in hibernation, “covfefe” resurfaced on Trump’s Twitter feed, inspired by the victory of a horse named Covfefe in a Breeder’s Cup event at California’s Santa Anita racetrack.
First, The Daily Caller tweeted a video of the winning filly striding into the winner’s circle, which was then retweeted by a Price Waterhouse Cooper executive, and finally noticed by the president who retweeted it with a comment that bridled at the assumption that the original tweet that coined the word was actually unintentional.
#Covfefe https://t.co/32jXfgoPg8
— Mitch Roschelle (@Mitch_Roschelle) November 2, 2019
Great! But how do you know it was a “mistweet?” May be something with deep meaning! https://t.co/00EXMCgQLp
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2019
Despite Trump’s prideful insistence on maintaining the charade that his “covfefe” tweet was as perfect as he claims his Ukraine phone call was, Maggie Haberman, the White House correspondent for The New York Times, managed to find one Trump administration official willing to reveal the true story behind the “covfefe” tweet, Director of Social Media Dan Scavino.
Scavino told other aides at the time that president had fallen asleep doing this tweet https://t.co/YPJcnfEWXg
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 4, 2019
At last, the mystery of “covfefe” is solved! The mystery of why a breeder of thoroughbreds would choose to name their talented racehorse after a word associated with a mistake-prone president credibly accused of corruption, crimes, and abuse of power still remains, however.
Think about that over your morning “covfefe.”
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