Adjective used to describe acts of international significance that have not been committed in the physical presence of a
president. The term was brought to prominence by President-Elect of the United States Donald
J. Trump, who on December 17,
2016 tweeted: "China steals United States Navy research
drone in international waters - rips it out of
water and takes it to China in unpresidented act." ("Unpresidented" was later corrected to "unprecedented.") The president-elect obviously had had the presidency on his mind for quite some time, yet his Freudian slip could also be pointing to deeper fantasies of presidential omnipresence—an ability he might expect any self-respecting world leader to possess. To Trump, perhaps the greatest affront wasn't the provocative nature of the Chinese action, but rather, that the president of China was not personally aboard the offending
ship to ensure
said action be properly presidented.