Trump boasts about being 'a good speller,' but says his fingers can't keep up with his brain when tweeting

Reuters

US President Donald Trump speaks at the White House's social media summit.

• US President Donald Trump boasted about his spelling abilities at the White House's first social media summit on Thursday.
• During a 50-minute address, Trump reflected on some of his Twitter gaffes, bemoaning how they are jumped on by the media.
• He added that he is "a good speller" but sometimes his "fingers aren't as good as the brain."
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Donald Trump is really good at spelling - it's just his fingers that can't keep up.

That was the US president's boast at the White House's first social media summit on Thursday, during which he delivered a speech doubling down on claims that Twitter and Facebook are rife with "terrible bias."

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In his 50-minute address, Trump reflected on some of the spelling and punctuation mistakes he has made on Twitter, bemoaning how they are jumped on by the media.

"If I have a spelling deal, they will put it on," the president said, drawing laughs from the audience. Impersonating the media, he said: "'Donald Trump spelled the word 'the' wrong. He doesn't know how to spell 'the.' He spelled it T-H-I.' Any kind of punctuation mistake, they put it on."

Read more: Trump and his White House have made some embarrassing spelling mistakes - here are the worst ones

Trump added that he's actually very measured about tweeting his famous diatribes - it's just that it doesn't always translate to his fingers when typing them out on his phone. "I'm very, very careful. I'm actually a good speller, but everyone says the fingers aren't as good as the brain," he explained.

You can watch Trump's comments on his spelling mistakes here:

Trump has made some famous Twitter blunders since taking office in 2017, the most notorious of which was him appearing to mistype the word "coverage" in a tweet two years ago. "Despite the constant negative press covfefe," the president wrote.

The White House made light of this at the summit, printing out a Trump tweet in which he commented on the error. Former Trump aide Sebastian Gorka tweeted an image of the sign:

Among other gaffes, Trump has also spelled the name of his wife wrong, mangled idioms like scot-free, and had his posts spell-checked by Captain America himself, Chris Evans.

During Thursday's summit, Trump also crowed about how engagement on his tweets explodes "like a rocket" after he posts them - as opposed to more traditional White House press releases. "If I put it out on social media, it's like an explosion. Fox, CNN, crazy MSNBC," he said.