The Slatest

Cory Booker Responds to Cryptic Trump Tweet by Promising to Love Him

How can you not love this guy? Oh right, all the things he said and did.

Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images

After just one day, Donald Trump has made a lot of very Donald Trumpian tweets about the Democratic National Convention. For example:

And this:

But his strangest tweet of the night on Monday was probably this cryptic message about Sen. Cory Booker:

Booker, who gave one of the night’s featured addresses, had a lengthy passage in his speech in which he described some of Trump’s racist statements against Hispanics, misogynistic statements, and his Islamophobic call to ban Muslims from entering the country. I’m going to guess, though, that this is the moment that got under Trump’s skin the most:

Trump says he would run our country like he has run his businesses. Well, I’m from Jersey, and we have seen the way he leads. In Atlantic City, he got rich while his companies declared multiple bankruptcies. Yet without remorse, even as people got hurt by his failures, he bragged, “The money I took out of there was incredible.” Yes, he took out lots of cash but he stiffed contractors—many of them small businesses, refusing to pay them for the work they’d done. America has seen enough of a handful of people growing rich at the cost of our nation descending into economic crisis.

Booker responded to Trump’s tweet on Tuesday in an interview with CNN, promising to “keep loving on him,” despite Trump’s “mean-spirited hate.” Booker would not speculate as to what Trump was talking about. But here’s what he told the network:

Let me tell you right now: I love Donald Trump. I don’t want to answer his hate with hate. I’m going to answer it with love. I’m not going to answer his darkness with darkness. I love him. I know his kids, I know his family. They’re good, the children especially, good people.

So he loves Trump. But not Trump’s hate. Also Trump shouldn’t be president:

I love you, Donald. I pray for you. I hope that you find some kindness in your heart, that you’re not going to be somebody that spews out insults to your political opposition, that you’re going to start finding some ways to love. I’m going to elevate him. I love you, I just don’t want you to be my president. I don’t want to you have the White House to be spewing that kind of mean-spirited hate that doesn’t even belong on a playground sandbox.

So he’s going to elevate Trump, but not join him in the playground sandbox. Also, he will pray for Trump and continue to love him, but also tell the truth about his meanness:

The reality is, I’m sorry, I’m just going to keep loving on him. I’m going to tell the truth about him, but I’m going to keep loving on him, praying for the best for him and his family. That kind of vitriol, that kind of meanness, has no place in the presidency. Bring it on, Donald. Show your truth. I’m going to show mine. Love you, brother.

Trump has not yet given any clues as to what he was talking about in that tweet or whether or not he loves Booker back.

Read more Slate coverage of the 2016 campaign.