Trump & White House Weigh In On Laurel Yanni Debate

Laurel Or Yanny? The audio snippet with just two syllables ignited an internet meltdown, dividing social media users into staunchly opposed camps: do you hear "Yanny" or "Laurel?" Members of President Donald Trump’s administration took time out from making America great again to weigh in on the important question that’s been perplexing people online. Namely, what word is this robotic-sounding voice really saying?

Vice President Mike Pence, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Trump’s special adviser Kellyanne Conway were among those who attempted to answer the question in humorous ways.

Trump himself also chimed in for the clip, which was posted online Thursday.

You've probably lost many friends in the last two days over the audio clip that has drawn battle-lines across the Internet. The Yanny vs Laurel debate has now reached The White House - and it's a divided house as the staff cannot agree on what the audio clip actually says. In a cheeky clip posted on Twitter, White House staff argued over Yanny and Laurel.

The clip opens with White House adviser - and first daughter - Ivanka Trump declaring the word is "so obviously Laurel", followed by many others who agree with her.

Presidential counsellor Kellyanne Conway too echoes it's Laurel but jokes she could change her answer and say Yanny. We see what you did there.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders drops a "fake news" retort in the video. Vice-President Mike Pence too weighs in on the heated Internet debate. He's Team Yanny, guys.

But a surprise appearance by POTUS puts an end to the disagreement. He hears 'covfefe', a word a invented last year in a cryptic tweet.

Yanny or Laurel" took the internet by storm after a Reddit user posted the short clip of a word being read out loud, asking fellow Reddit users a simple question: What do you hear? The clip was posted a few days ago, and now hundreds of thousands of people are engaged in a debate over what they hear.

When the "Laurel v. Yanny" debate erupted, even celebrities like like Ellen DeGeneres and JJ Watt were talking about it (DeGeneres thought it was "Laurel" but Watt was Team "Yanny").

Wired magazine solved part of the mystery Wednesday when it revealed the origins of the audio recording in question. Katie Hetzel, a freshman at Flowery Branch High School in Georgia, had a question about one of her vocabulary words, "laurel." "She looked it up on Vocabulary.com, and played the audio. Instead of the word in front of her, she heard 'yanny.'" Wired reports.

"I asked my friends in my class and we all heard mixed things," Hetzel told Wired. She posted the audio clip to her Instagram story, another student re-published it as a poll, and then a friend put it on Reddit, thus sparking the nationwide debate.