Politico reporter fired for 'gratuitous' comic tweet suggesting Trump has sex with daughter
Jewish reporter Julia Ioffe has been dismissed from political journal Politico for a tweet in which she says US President-elect Donald Trump likely having sex with daughter Ivanka in response to reports that she would be given a White House office where the First Lady normally sits.
The end of Julia Ioffe's run at Politico came not with a bang, but with a tweet.
Ioffe is a Jewish journalist who came under a hailstorm of anti-Semitic harrassment following an unflattering profile of Melania Trump she published in CQ magazine in April. She was responding to initial report that Ivanka Trump was to receive her own office in the White House, in a section normally reserved for the First Lady.
"Either Trump is f**king his daughter or he's shirking nepotism laws. Which is worse?" read Ioffe's Monday tweet on the matter.
Trump spokesperson Hope Hicks has since told Business Insider that the report on Ivanka setting up office at the White House is "false." After receiving substantial backlash over it, Ioffe deleted the tweet and apologized for its offensive language.
"We have a president-elect who popularized 'saying what everyone else is thinking,' but I guess my phrasing should've been more delicate," wrote Ioffe in a following tweet. "It was a tasteless, offensive tweet that I regret and have deleted. I am truly and deeply sorry. It won't happen again."
Soon after Ioffe's apology, though, Politico editor-in-chief John Harris and Editor Carrie Budoff Brown announced her early termination in a letter to Politico staff.
"Gratuitous opinion has no place, anywhere, at any time—not on your Facebook feed, your Twitter feed or any place else," Harris and Budoff Brown wrote. "It has absolutely zero value for our readers and should have zero place in our work."
"Julia Ioffe’s tweet this afternoon about President-elect Trump—currently and understandably racing across social media—is a clear example of the opposite of what we were talking about."
"Julia had previously announced she is taking her work to the Atlantic. We have accelerated the close of her Politico contributor contract, effective immediately."
At present, Ioffe will reportedly still be moving to the Atlantic.
