Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Meet Julia Ioffe, the Journalist Fired for Tweeting About Incest Between Trumps

Julia Ioffe, a widely read political writer, got the axe from her position at Politico on Wednesday after she posted an obscene Tweet that imputed either incest or nepotism to Ivanka Trump’s decision to join her father in the White House while his wife, Melania Trump, stays in New York. Here are five facts about the journalist, who is set to join the Atlantic next year as a reporter on foreign policy, national security and politics.

1. She’s Been the Target of Trump Trolls

Back in April, Ioffe wrote a profile in GQ Magazine about incoming First Lady Melania Trump. Melania Trump blasted the article following publication, calling it emblematic of the “dishonest media and their disingenuous reporting.” Web trolls backing Donald Trump then launched a hate campaign against Ioffe, tweeting death threats anti-Semitic images rife with Holocaust references at her.

2. Soviet Jewish Refugee

Ioffe was born to a Jewish family in the Soviet Union, and left for the United States in 1990, when she was only seven years old. She grew up in Columbia, Maryland.

3. Highly Credentialed

Ioffe attended Princeton as an undergrad, where she studied the history of the Soviet Union. She eventually earned a Fulbright Scholarship to return to Russia, where she worked as the Moscow correspondent of the New Yorker and Foreign Policy Magazine.

4. Critic of Vladimir Putin

Ioffe has been highly critical of the Russian president, including his human rights abuses at home and his alleged interference in America’s election process. She did, however, oppose a boycott of the Moscow Winter Olympics Games, arguing that it would not meet its stated goal of forcing the Kremlin to improve its record on gay rights.

5. New Republic Alum

Similar to many up-and-coming intellectuals, Ioffe worked for a time at The New Republic, once a bastion of contrarian leftwing thought. She was part of a mass walkout in 2014, when Facebook billionaire Chris Hughes fired senior management in a bid to make the magazine into a “digital media company.”

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.