What is covfefe? Donald Trump challenges the world to figure out the meaning of bizarre tweet

'Enjoy!'

Andrew Griffin
Wednesday 31 May 2017 11:10 BST
Comments
What is covfefe?

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Donald Trump has challenged the world to work out what perhaps his most bizarre tweet ever means.

"Who can figure out the true meaning of 'covfefe'???" he posted. "Enjoy!"

The tweet was a reference to a bizarre post in which he wrote: "Despite the constant negative press covfefe". Almost immediately after deleting the tweet, he sent out the new challenge the world.

The answer to Mr Trump's question is still unclear. But it appears that he had been attempting to write "coverage", and had given up early and sent the post with the error in before it had been finished.

By deleting the original tweet – a process that came five hours and 130,000 retweets after it was posted – Mr Trump may have been breaking the law as well as causing further embarrassment.

Mr Trump's new challenge was greeted by a range of responses online. Some suggested that it was code, while others said it was complete nonsense and didn't mean anything at all.

Some of the president's supporters said that they liked the word and even appeared to be adopting it as a badge of honour. But none of them gave a convincing definition of the word.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in