Donald Trump Deleted Tweet About Government Funding Bill Might Be the New Covfefe

Did President Donald Trump just outdo his 'covfefe' tweet? Many Twitter users mocked the president [...]

By Libby Birk

Did President Donald Trump just outdo his "covfefe" tweet? Many Twitter users mocked the president when he sent and immediately deleted a nonsensical tweet Thursday afternoon.

"funding bill," Trump tweeted on 12:21 p.m. ET, which was deleted and followed up a few minutes later with another tweet about the meaty funding bill that Congress must pass and he must sign before 11:59 p.m. to avoid another partial government shutdown.

It's likely that Trump accidentally hit "send" before he was ready, but the lack of capitalization or any punctuation led many to speculate that he either meant to search the term in Twitter or perhaps even on a search engine like Google.

Tim Burke, the director of video at The Daily Beast, snagged and shared a screenshot of the tweet.

"Whoever is logged into Trump's account absolutely confused wanting to search to see what people are saying about the bill with the tweet input box. (who among us?)" Burke wrote, pointing out that the tweet came from a desktop computer. He also shared a screenshot of how close the search bar and "compose tweet" buttons are to each other on desktop.

BuzzFeed's Jon Passantino pointed out that Trump typically tweets from his phone and so the deleted "funding bill" tweet may not have come from him anyway.

A different screenshot someone shared of the tweet showed a few responses from eagle-eyed Twitter users eager to jab POTUS.

"such funding," one Twitter user wrote, adding a series of "wows," referencing the famous "doge" meme.

"Who is Bill, why is he funding him?" another joked.

However humorous the technological blip, it's unlikely to surpass covfefe's viral nature. It comes from Trump's May 31, 2017 late-night tweet that confused the nation: "Despite the constant negative press covfefe," the partial sentence read, and nothing more.

He deleted the tweet a few hours later, but instead of pretending it never happened, as what was done Thursday, he leaned into it. "Who can figure out the true meaning of 'covfefe' ??? Enjoy!" he said nearly six hours after the tweet went out.

What didn't help the president's case was when then-Press Secretary Sean Spicer insisted the covfefe made sense, saying that people shouldn't be so concerned about the tweet and the fact that it was up for hours.

"I think the president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant," Spicer said at the time.

Jokes and memes were instantly born out of the moment, with 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton even getting in on the joke, writing, "People in covfefe houses shouldn't throw covfefe" when he attacked her on Twitter.

A week later, when fired FBI director James Comey testified before Congress, a Washington, D.C. bar threw a covfefe watch party.

A member of Congress even introduced the Communications Over Various Feeds Electronically for Engagement Act, also known as COVFEFE Act — which hasn't gone anywhere since.

What do you think Trump's "funding bill" tweet meant? Share your response in the comments below.

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