The president, who is currently facing an impeachment inquiry, argued that the news outlet deliberately and maliciously removed his punctuation and wrongfully claimed he had made a spelling error.
It all started when Trump slammed House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff in a tweet on Thursday, after the Democratic representative led a hearing about the whistleblower complaint that sparked the controversy over Trump’s phone call on July 25 with the president of Ukraine.
“Liddle’ Adam Schiff, who has worked unsuccessfully for 3 years to hurt the Republican Party and President, has just said that the Whistleblower, even though he or she only had second hand information, ‘is credible.’ How can that be with zero info and a known bias. Democrat Scam!” the president wrote.
Various outlets pointed to the president’s spelling of “Liddle,” presuming he meant “Little.” However, Trump once told New York magazine that his infamous nickname for Senator Marco Rubio was always meant to be “Liddle Marco.”
“He just looked like Little Marco to me. And it’s not Little. It’s Liddle. L-i-d-d-l-e,” the president said in the 2016 article.
Aside from what may be simply the commander in chief’s preferred pronunciation of the word “little,” Trump appeared in his defensive tweet on Friday to not know the difference between a hyphen and an apostrophe—or how to spell “describing.”
“I used the word Liddle’, not Liddle, in discribing Corrupt Congressman Liddle’ Adam Schiff,” the president wrote in his tweet Friday morning. “Low ratings @CNN purposely took the hyphen out and said I spelled the word little wrong. A small but never ending situation with CNN!”
At this point, Merriam-Webster jumped in on the fun, sending out a tweet for those seeking clarity on the punctuation dispute.
“For those looking up punctuation early on a Friday morning,” the publishing company remarked, “A hyphen is a mark - used to divide or to compound words. An apostrophe is a mark ’ used to indicate the omission of letters or figures.”
Trump is known for lashing out against negative news coverage. He popularized the term “fake news” in his presidential run and has blocked people on social media who criticized or made fun of him. Most recently, he has complained about how the media and Democratic lawmakers are treating him amid the revelation that Trump urged Ukraine to investigate a political rival in the 2020 election, while hundreds of millions of dollars of military aid to that nation were on the line.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced on Tuesday the launch of an impeachment inquiry into Trump. On Thursday morning, the intelligence community whistleblower’s full complaint was released regarding the phone call between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Trump. The whistleblower also alleged that White House officials later tried to “lock down” records of the conversation.
Americans are split over whether they support the impeachment inquiry, but an overwhelming majority say they want the allegations against the president explored, according to two new surveys.
