Trump issues misspelled response to report he wanted border moat with alligators and snakes

'Now the press is trying to sell the fact that I wanted a Moot stuffed with alligators and snakes'

Donald Trump has issued a misspelled response to reports he wanted a moat filled with alligators and snakes at the US-Mexico border.

The president misspelled the word “moat” in a tweet on Wednesday morning, writing: “Now the press is trying to sell the fact that I wanted a Moot stuffed with alligators and snakes, with an electrified fence and sharp spikes on top, at our Southern Border.”

“I may be tough on Border Security, but not that tough,” he added. “The press has gone Crazy. Fake News!”

His comments came after the New York Times published an explosive report detailing an alleged meeting at the White House in March, when Mr Trump’s staff “desperately tried to placate him” about the issue of undocumented immigration along the nation’s southern border.

“You are making me look like an idiot!” The president shouted at his team during the meeting, according to the paper. “I ran on this. It’s my issue.”

At the time, Mr Trump was demanding his administration close the border as droves of migrants travelled towards the US. The caravan was part of a seasonal trend that gains in size and garners international media attention as it moves across Latin America.

He continued to berate his staff as Kirstjen Nielsen, the president’s former Department of Homeland Security secretary, tried to reason with him about closing the border.

“All you care about is your friends in Mexico,” the president responded. “I’ve had it. I want it done at noon tomorrow.”

White House officials managed to get the president to back off those demands, though Ms Nielsen was eventually dismissed from the administration.

“Privately, the president had often talked about fortifying a border wall with a water-filled trench, stocked with snakes or alligators, prompting aides to seek a cost estimate,” the New York Times reported.

The paper wrote: “[Mr Trump] wanted the wall electrified, with spikes on top that could pierce human flesh. After publicly suggesting that soldiers shoot migrants if they threw rocks, the president backed off when his staff told him that was illegal. But later in a meeting, aides recalled, he suggested that they shoot migrants in the legs to slow them down. That’s not allowed either, they told him.”

The report sparked swift outcry from human rights groups like Amnesty International, which wrote in a statement: “We can’t believe we have to say this, but: Everyone has the right to seek asylum without the fear of snakes, alligators, electric wall with spikes” and “being shot”.

Mr Trump later posted a correctly-spelled tweet and took down his previous post, keeping the incendiary attacks he launched against the free press.

The New York Times said in its report that it had spoken to "more than a dozen White House and administration officials".