During an off-camera press briefing, the White House press secretary was asked about a midnight tweet in which the president posted the word “covfefe.”

So what did President Trump mean when he sent a tweet with a head-scratching word in it?

The apparent typo led the hashtag #covfefe to trend worldwide Wednesday. (The president deleted the tweet around 6 a.m. Wednesday.)

However, questions about the tweet came up during Wednesday afternoon’s press briefing.

“Do you think people should be concerned that the president posted somewhat of an incoherent tweet last night and that it then stayed up for hours?” a reporter asked Spicer, according to audio of the briefing.


“Um, no,” Spicer replied.

“Why did it stay up so long? Is no one watching this?” the reporter pressed.

“I think the president and a small group of people knew exactly what he meant,” Spicer replied.

The response led to what sounded like widespread chaos among the reporters, who all began shouting questions.

“Wait a minute!”

“What does he mean?”

“What does the president mean?”

“What is ‘covfefe?’ ”

“Oh my gosh,” one reporter could be heard saying under her breath before the questioning turned to a different issue.

During a different event hosted by Recode in California shortly after, Hillary Clinton was speaking to an audience when a woman asked her about the incident.

“Ah, the ‘small group’ explanation. You don’t have a high enough classification to know what ‘covfefe’ means,” Clinton joked.

For now, it looks like the “covfefe” conundrum continues.