Woman fired for flipping off Donald Trump's motorcade
WASHINGTON ― You may have seen this photo of President Donald Trump’s motorcade winding down a wooded road last week as a woman on a bicycle appeared to give it the bird.
The picture, snapped by a White House photographer traveling with the president as he left his golf course in Sterling, Va., went viral almost immediately. News outlets picked up the story when it appeared in a White House pool report. Late-night talk show hosts told jokes about the encounter and people on social media began hailing the unidentified woman as a “she-ro,” using the hashtag #Her2020.
The bicyclist’s name is Juli Briskman and her employer ― government contractor Akima LLC ― wasn’t so happy about the photo. In fact, Akima fired her over it.
In an interview on Saturday with HuffPost, Briskman, a 50-year-old mother of two, said she was stunned that someone had taken a picture of her giving Trump the middle finger.
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As the image circulated online, Briskman went to work last Monday and told Akima’s HR department about what was happening. On Tuesday, the bosses called her into a meeting and said she had violated the company’s social media policy by using the photo as her profile picture on Twitter and Facebook.
“They said, ‘We’re separating from you,‘” said Briskman. “Basically, you cannot have ‘lewd’ or ‘obscene’ things in your social media. So they were calling flipping him off ‘obscene.’”
Briskman, who worked in marketing and communications at Akima for just over six months, said she emphasized to executives that she wasn’t on the job when the incident happened and that her social media pages don’t mention her employer. They told her that because Akima was a government contractor, the photo could hurt their business, she said.
Briskman also claimed that a male colleague kept his job after posting profane comments on his Facebook page, which featured Akima as his cover photo. She said he was reprimanded for calling someone “a fucking Libtard asshole” on Facebook, but was allowed to delete the post and keep his job.
“How is that any less ‘obscene’ than me flipping off the president?” she asked. “How is that fair?”
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A request for comment from Akima was not immediately returned.
Asked what she was thinking when she saw Trump’s motorcade roll up next to her, Briskman said it was a gut reaction to flip him off.
“He was passing by and my blood just started to boil,” she said. “I’m thinking, DACA recipients are getting kicked out. He pulled ads for open enrollment in Obamacare. Only one-third of Puerto Rico has power. I’m thinking, he’s at the damn golf course again.”
“I flipped off the motorcade a number of times,” she added.
Briskman, a Democrat, said she planned to look for a new job with an advocacy group that she believes in, like Planned Parenthood or PETA.
And despite getting fired, Briskman said she has no regrets about the attention her public show of displeasure with Trump received. In fact, she said she’s happy to be an image of protest that resonates with many Americans.
“In some ways, I’m doing better than ever,” she said. “I’m angry about where our country is right now. I am appalled. This was an opportunity for me to say something.”
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
