WASHINGTON — President Trump did not waste any time Sunday night congratulating the Kansas City Chiefs for defeating the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl.
Except he got their home state wrong.
“Congratulations to the Kansas City Chiefs on a great game, and a fantastic comeback, under immense pressure. You represented the Great State of Kansas” — yikes — “and, in fact, the entire USA, so very well,” Mr. Trump said in a tweet posted during his Air Force One flight from Palm Beach, Fla., to Washington. “Our country is PROUD OF YOU.”
The problem, of course, is that the Chiefs play in the state of Missouri, next door. There is a Kansas City, Kan., a handful of miles away, but it was the kind of mix-up his followers might expect a member of the coastal elite to make, not a president who spends much of his time speaking on behalf of people from that part of the country.
The president’s message, as short-lived as it was before it was deleted and replaced with the geographically correct location of the franchise, caught the attention of people on Twitter. One of them was Claire McCaskill, the former Democratic senator from Missouri. And she was not forgiving.
For the rebuttal, the president had his defenders, including “Carpe Donktum,” a somewhat infamous conservative meme creator who has been invited to meet with Mr. Trump at the White House.
In the midst of fan celebrations and Twitter arguments over the president’s grasp of geography, a new version of the first message suddenly appeared.
“Congratulations to the Kansas City Chiefs on a great game and a fantastic comeback under immense pressure,” Mr. Trump wrote. “We are proud of you and the Great State of Missouri. You are true Champions!”
And while attention was focused on the mix-up, the president — or whoever was in charge of the presidential account — quickly began sharing a flurry of tweets related to the Trump campaign’s Super Bowl ad, which highlighted the Trump administration’s policies on prison reform.