Prominent R&B musician John Legend, along with his wife, television personality Chrissy Teigen, are involved in the latest spat with US President Donald Trump, who criticized the couple in a series of tweets following Legend’s appearance on NBC Nightly News. Legend was discussing criminal justice reform with television anchor Lester Holt on the criminal justice system and mass incarceration.
Legend was speaking on behalf of Free America, a program that he initiated to help advocate for criminal justice reform, which intends to stop mass incarceration in the United States. While US incarceration rates have fallen since their peak nearly a decade ago, the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world.
Trump began his tweets by criticizing former President Barack Obama, before claiming credit for the the First Step Act, a bipartisan law that “reduced mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses and eased the federal ‘three strike’ rule imposing a life sentence for three or more convictions.”
“When all of the people pushing so hard for Criminal Justice Reform were unable to come even close to getting it done, they came to me as a group and asked for my help,” Trump wrote on social media. “I got it done with a group of Senators & others who would never have gone for it. Obama couldn’t come close….”
He then redirected his tweets toward Legend, Teigan and Holt; where he condemned the couple for their alleged lack of support for the criminal justice reform bill, while he condemned Holt for not mentioning his name or the republicans when discussing criminal justice reform. During the tweets he insulted the couple, calling Legend “boring,” and Teigan “foul mouthed.”
Legend responded with a sarcastic tweet of his own, stating: “Imagine being president of a whole country and spending your Sunday night hate-watching MSNBC hoping somebody–ANYBODY–will praise you. Melania, please praise this man. He needs you.”
Teigan on the other hand, responded with her own comment, calling the president “a pussy ass bitch,” in response to his tweets, causing the hashtag #PussyAssBitch to go viral.
Check out our recap of Legend at the Hollywood Bowl here.
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