Donald Trump’s Twitter habits are one of the weirdest things about his presidency—they make him more accessible to the public than ever, but they also have the potential to make him look incredibly stupid. On Wednesday morning, Trump tweeted something that, rather than causing an uproar, just seemed to inspire confusion: What could the president possibly be talking about?
“Despite the negative press covfefe,” Trump at 12:06 a.m. on Wednesday morning. Was it a typo? Did he mean to hit send? Is this an English word no one knew existed? Or is he writing in another language?
Although the tweet was deleted around six hours later, The Washington Post thankfully got a screenshot of it so the internet could continue to question the president’s word choice. The tweet got around 127,000 retweets and 162,000 likes before it was taken down and replaced with a new tweet asking, “Who can figure out the true meaning of ‘covfefe’ ???”
Who can figure out the true meaning of “covfefe” ??? Enjoy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2017
Of course, Twitter users immediately took notice of the word and #covfefe quickly became a trending hashtag on the site, as well as a Twitter Moment. And, obviously, the jokes kept coming.
Make America #Covfefe Again #MACA pic.twitter.com/43OZ5CmCdE
— Diane N. Sevenay (@Diane_7A) May 31, 2017
The best part of waking up is #covfefe in your cup.
— Randy Rainbow (@RandyRainbow) May 31, 2017
Twitter is fast #covfefe pic.twitter.com/uWoRSSxz7t
— Geované M. (@geovanemorgan) May 31, 2017
Many thought to Google the word, only to find that it had no real meaning in either English or any other language. CNN speculates that the president was clearly trying to type the word “coverage,” but that doesn’t seem to be stopping Twitter from continuing to fixate on the typo.
So will Trump ever tell us what he really meant by “covfefe,” or will it forever be another internet mystery?