Can Trump write correctly?
An excerpt from an otherwise-interesting interview with Trevor Noah:
we're not going to lose our minds over Trump's spelling in a tweet. We're not going to get angry because of his grammar in a speech. I'm like, guys, just imagine that Trump is a leader who doesn't speak English as his first language. Throw that out of your world, and immediately your life becomes a little less stressful. Because so many people will stress about that, you know? "How can we have a president who can't even spell? He can't even string a sentence together!" Yeah, but that's not really a big problem. The problem is what he's trying say to versus the mistake that he's making in saying it.
Is he making a mistake in saying things though. Compare, e.g., this Boston Globe article
West Wing employees who draft proposed tweets intentionally employ suspect grammar and staccato syntax in order to mimic the president’s style, according to two people familiar with the process. ... Some staff members even relish the scoldings Trump gets from elites shocked by the Trumpian language they strive to imitate, believing that debates over presidential typos fortify the belief within his base that he has the common touch. ... Martha Brockenbrough, founder of the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar, said that the president’s disregard for standard English plays into the public persona he has created for himself that he’s a man of the people, despite his billions.
The later article specifically notes that:
“While staff members do consciously use poor grammar, they do not intentionally misspell words or names,” the Globe says.
That said, I wonder if Trump sometimes misspells intentionally.