President baffles the internet, and possibly himself, with ‘covfefe’
DONALD TRUMP’S midnight tweet was as cryptic as it was divisive. For more than five hours, internet users tried to decipher what the leader of the free world meant with his message: “Despite the constant negative press covfefe.”
By the time his tweet was deleted at about 6am local time, it had become something of a presidential Rorschach test, derided by Mr Trump’s critics as yet another symptom of a chaotic White House where officials lack the power to delete a garbled message but dismissed by supporters as an inconsequential distraction from the real business of making America great again.
Mr Trump himself tried to laugh it off. “Who can figure out the true meaning of ‘covfefe’??? Enjoy,” he tweeted in the morning.
But his blunder comes at an awkward time. His campaign faces allegations of links with Russia, his director of communications resigned this week, and there is talk that a team of lawyers could be called in to check his tweets before they are posted to avoid any legal problems.
Rich Galen, who served as spokesman for Dan Quayle, the former vicepresident, said it was another example of Mr Trump managing to disrupt his own messaging operation. “If it were a standalone thing it would just be amusing. Everyone would laugh about it for a day and then let it go,” he said. “The problem is that it indicates a wider problem in being able to have a message and then control that message.”
White House officials did not reply to a request for comment, as many observers wondered why no one had stepped in sooner to delete the tweet.
John Feehery, a Republican communications strategist, said deleting a tweet was a sensitive business for any aide, and more so for anyone working for a leader who saw Twitter as a way of broadcasting his authentic voice.
“There’s an authenticity thing here that is appealing – you have a direct pipeline to what the president is thinking. The president also believes in cell phone diplomacy. He picks up the phone and calls people.”
It has emerged that Mr Trump has been giving out his mobile phone number to world leaders and asking them to call him directly, according to officials.
The practice breaks all diplomatic protocol, as well as causing a headache for security officials charged with keeping his communications secure.
So far only Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, has called Mr Trump on the number.