Trump deletes tweets after ridicule at rant over 'Noble' prize and angrily eating 'hambergers'

President says he was just being sarcastic, a tactic he also used after suggesting people inject disinfectant to kill coronavirus

Donald Trump deleted three tweets over the weekend during a two-day rant that again showed just how focused the US president is on how the media covers his presidency and response to the coronavirus outbreak.

Mr Trump's scrub of his Twitter account came after he walked out of a Friday night coronavirus press briefing after just 22 minutes and without taking questions. In the Sunday afternoon social media posts, he falsely referred to a "Noble Prize" for journalism.

In one, he misspelled hamburger as he lashed out at a New York Times article that detailed his often-angry behaviour inside the White House during the pandemic lockdown.

"I will often be in the Oval Office late into the night & read & see that I am angrily eating a hamberger & Diet Coke in my bedroom. People with me are always stunned. Anything to demean," he wrote in a now-deleted tweet.

In another, he appeared to be referring to the Nobel Prize. There is no such award for journalism. The president might have been meaning to call for reporters to be stripped of their Pulitzer Prizes, something he has done before.

In the now-deleted tweets, the president offered to give the "Noble Committee" a list of journalists who "got it right," meaning reporting about Russian election meddling in 2016. His first two tweets in the terminated thread focused on unnamed reporters who won awards for Russia-related work.

Like he did after a Thursday evening press briefing during which he suggested Americans might inject disinfectant into their bodies to kill Covid-19, Trump on Sunday suggested he was merely being sarcastic.

"Does anybody get the meaning of what a so-called Noble (not Nobel) Prize is, especially as it pertains to Reporters and Journalists? Noble is defined as, "having or showing fine personal qualities or high moral principles and ideals." Does sarcasm ever work?"

Contended Mr Trump was joking about a controversial statement was a favourite defence two of his past press secretaries often tried. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is no longer in the White House. Stephanie Grisham has returned to the East Wing as a senior aide to First Lady Melania Trump.

The president cancelled his planned Monday evening press briefing, but is expected to face reporters' questions during a 4pm event at the White House.