A woman who flipped the bird at President Trump’s motorcade is laughing all the way to the bank after her supporters raised thousands of dollars for her.
A GoFundMe campaign for Juli Briskman, the Virginia cyclist who gave the president’s motorcade the middle finger while biking, has raised more than $84,000 as of Tuesday afternoon.
Rob Mello, of Hudson, Massachusetts, started the viral campaign on Briskman’s behalf after hearing the news that she got fired from her job over the stunt.
“Juli Briskman is an inspiration to us all,” the GoFundMe page says. “This week we learned that she was fired from her employer for exercising her first amendment rights. You can show your support by donating here.”
Briskman gave the middle finger to Trump’s motorcade while biking alongside it on the road in Sterling, Virginia, on October 29 and got sacked from her job October 31.
“They said, ‘We’re separating from you,’” Briskman told HuffPost when asked about the firing. “Basically, you cannot have ‘lewd’ or ‘obscene’ things in your social media. So they were calling flipping him off ‘obscene.’”
Briskman, a self-identified Democrat, worked in marketing and communications for a government contractor before the incident.
Mello set a fundraising goal of $100,000.
“Through your generous donations, heavy burdens have been lifted. Thank you!” Briskman wrote in a message to supporters on her fundraising page.