Woman in viral photo flipping off Trump's motorcade told her employer and got fired
Juli Briskman did what a lot of folks have undoubtedly imagined themselves doing.
She was biking in Sterling, Virginia, on Oct. 28, as President Donald Trump's motorcade whisked past her, driving away from one of his golf courses. As the black SUVs rolled by, she raised her left arm and extended her middle finger.
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The photo went everywhere so fast that, according to HuffPost, she decided to tell the human resources department at Akima LLC, where she worked as a marketing specialist.
Her employer wasn't too happy about the photo, and they fired her.
Briskman hadn't responded to an interview request at the time of writing, but she told HuffPost that, “In some ways, I’m doing better than ever."
She told HuffPost and The Washington Post that she'd already been thinking about Trump and the state of the America as his motorcade started to roll by. She was thinking about the devastation in Puerto Rico, about the carnage of last month's mass-shooting in Las Vegas, and about deportations. So when she realized the president appeared to be leaving another of his golf courses, she flipped him off.
"I'd do it again," she said.
That said, she still doesn't quite get why she was fired. Briskman said the company claims she violated their social media policy, which doesn't allow for anything "obscene" on employee accounts. The famous photo now appears to be her Twitter profile picture, her Twitter background, and her Facebook cover photo, though her profiles don't seem to tie her to Akima. She claims a colleague had obvious ties to the company in his Facebook profile when he called someone a "fucking libtard asshole" over the summer, but was allowed to keep his job.
Briskman has reportedly reached out to the American Civil Liberties Union about the firing, but she's also already thinking about what's next. According to her interview with the Huffington Post, "She plans to look for a new job with an advocacy group that she believes in, like Planned Parenthood or PETA."
An Akima representative said the company would email a statement about firing Briskman, but hasn't done so by the time of publication. We'll update when we hear back.
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