CNN attempted to stump a spelling bee champion on Thursday by bringing her on air and having her spell the most popular “word” on the internet this week: “covfefe.”
The network invited 12-year-old Ananya Vinay on, who recently won the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Anchors Alisyn Camerota and Chris Cuomo — of CNN’s “New Day” — asked her to spell the famous typo made by President Donald Trump on Twitter earlier this week.
She went on to ask the typical spelling bee questions.
“Language of origin?”
The anchors answered: “Gibberish.”
Vinay also inquired what part of speech the word was from.
“It could be a noun but it may be used as a very and as an insult,” Cuomo said.
“In any way you like,” Camerota added.
She didn’t spell it correctly (“C-O-F-E-F-E?”), but does it really matter when the word itself is made up? The anchors told her she won anyway.
“Again, it was a nonsense word,” Camerota said.
Vinay won the national competition after correctly spelling marocain, which is a type of dress fabric. She and the other finalist, Rohan Rajeev, spelled words such as marram,
cheiropompholyx and durchkomponiert.
Trump set the internet and news networks abuzz early Wednesday morning when he tweeted out the now infamous typo: “Despite the constant negative press covfefe.” It quickly became the subject of memes and jokes directed at the President.
Press Secretary Sean Spicer, on the other hand, claimed that there was some meaning behind it.
“The president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant,” Spicer told reporters.