Two Washington Post reporters openly feuded Saturday evening on Twitter over a sexist retweet by a colleague earlier this week that apparently sparked infighting at the newspaper. Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel retweeted a post stating: “Every girl is bi. You just have to figure out if it’s polar or sexual.” The amplification of that sexist tweet landed the influential journalist in hot water with colleagues, including The Washington Post’s Felicia Sonmez, who wrote, “Fantastic to work at a news outlet where retweets like this are allowed!” Subsequently, Weigel expressed remorse, and a Post spokesperson said editors told the newsroom that the retweet was “reprehensible” and “demeaning.” But on Saturday evening, the controversy only intensified, as Washington Post reporter Jose Del Real accused Sonmez of “harassment” for calling out Weigel’s retweet, suggesting she was “rallying the internet to attack him for a mistake.”

Del Real’s comments sparked a bitter back-and-forth late into the evening hours, with Sonmez arguing that it trivializes the challenges women face with sexism and misogyny to shrug off Weigel’s retweet as a simple mistake. “If you are more outraged over the fact that I pointed out a sexist tweet than over the sexism itself … all I can say is that speaks volumes about your own priorities,” she wrote. Del Real responded that “fighting sexism and misogyny matters deeply to me,” but appeared to double down at the same time, writing: “Entirely separately, I hope you reconsider the cruelty you regularly unleash against colleagues.” By Sunday morning, Del Real had deleted his Twitter account, and a Washington Post spokesperson declined to comment.