The cyclist who lost her job after giving the middle finger to President Donald Trump’s motorcade has found a new one after running for local office and ousting a Republican supervisor in Loudoun County, Virginia, on Tuesday.
The cyclist, Juli Briskman, had been active in local politics before, but in October 2017 she lifted that one specific finger to make a point and ended up gaining the national spotlight.
»FROM 2017: Woman fired after giving middle finger to Donald Trump's motorcade
Trump had just finished a round of golf at his course in Potomac Falls, Virginia, when his motorcade approached Briskman, who, from the seat of her bicycle, kept her finger raised as the black SUVs passed — and repeated the gesture when she caught up to them in traffic.
Credit: ERIC THAYER
Credit: ERIC THAYER
News photographers captured images of her protest, and they quickly spread around the internet. The next week, Briskman was told she needed to resign from her job as a marketing analyst for Akima, a federal contractor in Herndon, Virginia, for violating its social media policy by posting the images online.
Now, as a newly elected member of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, Briskman will oversee that same golf course — it’s in her district.
Briskman, who ran as a Democrat, defeated the incumbent with just over 52% of the vote.
In October 2017, Briskman said her “blood started boiling” when Trump’s motorcade began to pass her.
“I just got angry,” she said then. “I lifted my arm and started flipping him off. I started thinking, ‘You’re golfing again when there is so much going on right now.’ ”
She filed a lawsuit about her firing, but it was dismissed by a state judge.
Briskman said in a tweet Tuesday night that she was proud to “#FlipVA.” Both chambers of the State Legislature flipped from Republican to Democratic control Tuesday.
Credit: ERIN SCHAFF
Credit: ERIN SCHAFF
Loudoun County hasn’t been shy about enforcing the law on Trump’s golf course in the past. In March, the county warned the golf course could be fined hundreds of dollars for improperly removing trees, but it later concluded the tree clearing had no impact on the floodplain, The Loudoun Times-Mirror reported.
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