Politics

Trump WH asked Twitter to censor Chrissy Teigen tweet: ex-employee

Former President Donald Trump’s White House asked Twitter to censor one of Chrissy Teigen’s tweets after the model referred to the 45th president as a “p—y ass b—h,” a former Twitter worker told a congressional hearing Wednesday.

Anika Collier Navaroli, a former member of the social media giant’s content moderation team, was asked about Teigen’s September 2019 post during the House Oversight Committee’s hearing into the platform’s suppression of The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story.

In response to a question from Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) about what the tweet entailed, Navaroli told the hearing: “Please excuse my language, this is a direct quote, but Chrissy Teigen referred to Donald Trump as a p—y ass b—h.”

Navaroli said the White House then reached out to Twitter asking for the tweet to be removed.

“I do remember hearing we’d received a request from the White House to make sure we evaluated this tweet, and they wanted it to come down because it was a derogatory statement directed at the president,” she said.

Anika Collier Navaroli, a former employee with Twitter’s content moderation team, told the House Oversight Committee’s hearing Wednesday about the Trump White House request. AP
Chrissy Teigen hurled the expletive-laden insult at Trump after the former president called her John Legend’s “foul-mouthed wife.” GC Images

The tweet, which was reviewed under the abusive behavior policy, was not deleted.

The model’s expletive-laden insult came after Trump tweeted that her husband, singer John Legend, was “boring” and referred to her as Legend’s “foul-mouthed wife.”

“Lol what a p—y ass b—h. Tagged everyone but me. An honor, mister president,” Teigen tweeted in response.

Elsewhere during his questioning, Connolly asked if it was “appropriate for the president of the United States to direct or otherwise influence a social media company to take down its content?”

“It’s a very slippery slope,” answered Navaroli, who was brought in as a witness by Democrats on the panel.

Navaroli said the Trump White House reached out to Twitter asking for Teigen’s tweet to be removed. AFP via Getty Images

Internal company emails disclosed in the “Twitter Files” — which were released in December at the direction of new CEO Elon Musk — revealed that both the Trump and Biden campaigns had emailed Twitter in the lead-up to the 2020 election with requests to review certain posts.

Independent journalist Matt Taibbi, who tweeted out part one of the Twitter Files Dec. 2, disclosed company emails responding to a request “from the Biden team” shortly after the platform first censored The Post’s bombshell Hunter Biden laptop story.

Another email said, “More to review from the Biden team,” along with a list of tweets. In response, someone wrote back, “handled these.”

“Both parties had access to these tools. For instance, in 2020, requests from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were received and honored,” Taibbi tweeted at the time.