12-year-old Ananya Vinay from Fresno, California, became the winner of Scripps Spelling Bee. She is the 13th consecutive Indian-American winner of the national spelling bee. While talking to CNN, Ananya spelt a word wrong for which the host said could be because “its root is not in Sanskrit, which is what you're probably used to using."
Ananya and another Indian-American Rohan Rajeev reached the finals of the competition held at Gaylord National Resort and Convention Centre in Maryland. Ananya won on the word "marocain", fabric.
The hosts in CNN, Alisyn Camerota and Chris Cuomo asked her to spell ‘covfefe'.
Donald Trump had used the word in a tweet that read "Despite the constant negative press covefe", which stayed up on his account for nearly five hours overnight as social media mercilessly mocked him for the typo.
When Vinay asked the definition of 'covfefe' and its language of origin, the anchors said that the word is gibberish. She was finally able to spell it ‘cofefe’.
Camerota then told Vinay the correct spelling was 'covfefe' and added, "It's a nonsense word. So, we're not sure that its root is actually in Sanskrit, which is what you're probably, uh, used to use, so, I don't know. Anyway."
Cuomo tried covering up by congratulating Ananya and telling that he wants to be like her, but the damage was done.
CNN already has a lawsuit against them for giving its African-American employees lower performance ratings and pay inequality compared with other employees.
Ananya won $40,000 for winning the competition. She said she would share the amount with her sister and save it for a college education.
12-year-old Ananya Vinay won the National Spelling Bee so naturally CNN had her on to spell "covfefe" and say some racist stuff to her. pic.twitter.com/Qirb8CpBV9
— Jeremy McLellan (@JeremyMcLellan) June 3, 2017Thanks Mark -CNN's Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota used Ananya Vinay spelling bee Champion for their political anti Trump views! Bigot Liars
— Earl Sanford (@Sailguy62) June 5, 2017