“Up Your Game, People.”
A Cedars-Sinai Nurse Cheered the Trump Shooter.
The Hospital Shrugged.
Matthew Shaffer, NP, a nurse practitioner at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, replied “Up your game, people” on X to a post mocking Cole Tomas Allen — the Walnut, California middle-school teacher arrested at the April 25 White House Correspondents’ Dinner with multiple weapons and federally charged with attempted assassination of the President. UnitedHealthcare fired its social media manager same day for less. An Ohio daycare terminated a teacher within 48 hours. A Wisconsin school district pulled a 20-year veteran off the floor on administrative leave. Cedars-Sinai’s response, in full: “Social media postings of individual staff members do not reflect the views or positions of Cedars-Sinai.”No suspension. No firing. No public discipline. The hospital that bills itself one of America’s top-ranked academic medical centers shrugged.
- 1tweetby an active Cedars-Sinai nurse practitioner cheering an attempted-assassination shooter
- 0disciplinepublicly announced by Cedars-Sinai · employer statement: 'doesn't reflect our views'
- Same dayUHC firedAlison King for an Aww-they-missed TikTok · violence policy cited
On X, a user posting under the handle Jason Cosler wrote: “Someone missed again? Who is hiring these people.”The post mocked Cole Tomas Allen, the man arrested at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on April 25 and federally charged with attempted assassination of the President of the United States. Allen had charged a security checkpoint at the Washington Hilton with multiple weapons; one Secret Service agent was struck and survived; no other injuries reported.
Replying to that post, Matthew Shaffer, NP— a nurse practitioner whose Cedars-Sinai provider listing remained live as of publication, and whose LinkedIn shows a hire date in March 2026 — wrote three words:
“Up your game, people.”
Matthew Shaffer, NP, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center · X reply, April 26-27, 2026
The intent is not ambiguous. There is no charitable reading. Shaffer was telling people who attempt to assassinate American presidents to do better next time. He was speaking, on a public platform under his real name, while employed as a clinical caregiver at a major academic medical center where on any given shift he might be assigned to a patient who voted for the man whose murder he had just publicly endorsed. The post was screencapped and circulated within hours.
Radio host Doug Wagner publicly tagged the medical center on X with a question that any reasonable patient might also ask:
“@CedarsSinai So, are you good with an RN of yours cheering on the assassination of the President? What if someone who is clearly a Trump supporter is in your hospital? Think maybe he could kill that person. You down with that?”
Doug Wagner, radio host · X · April 27, 2026
Wagner’s question is not rhetorical. A nurse practitioner has independent authority under California state law to assess, prescribe, and order procedures — including procedures whose outcome depends on which patient gets which dose at which time. If you have just publicly cheered the murder of the President, what does the patient in front of you, the one wearing the wrong hat, deserve to wonder? It is reasonable to ask the hospital where it stands.
“Social media postings of individual staff members do not reflect the views or positions of Cedars-Sinai.”
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center spokesperson · statement to Fox News Digital · May 5, 2026
Twenty-one words. No suspension. No firing. No reassignment off direct patient care. No referral to the California Board of Registered Nursing. No internal investigation announced. No statement from CEO Peter L. Slavin, MD — who took over from Thomas M. Priselac in October 2024 — or from board chair David Kaplan. The hospital’s position, on the record, is that what its caregivers post in public under their own names is not the hospital’s problem.
Three employers handled near-identical conduct very differently in the same week.
UnitedHealthcare social media manager Alison King posted a TikTok hours after the WHCD shooting in which she said her first thought on hearing about the assassination attempt was that the news was “probably fake,” and her second thought was, in her own words, “Aww, they missed?” She added, sarcastically, that she was “so happy they missed.”
UHC HR posted a public statement the same day: “Violence is never acceptable and any comments that suggest otherwise are in no way consistent with our mission and values.” They did not name the employee. They did terminate her. The company’s history with political violence is not abstract: their CEO Brian Thompson was murdered in Manhattan in December 2024.
An Ohio daycare worker, Corrine Baum, was terminated by BrightPath after the school discovered a TikTok video in which she appeared to express disappointment that President Trump was not killed in the shooting. The center’s parent body issued a public confirmation of the termination. Per Fox 19 / WAFB / Yahoo News reporting.
Patrick Meyer, a 20-year veteran social-studies teacher at Kaukauna High School in Wisconsin, was placed on administrative leave after a since-deleted X post in which he mocked the slogan of the President’s political movement and wrote that he was “not impressed with recent presidential assassins.” The Kaukauna Area School District confirmed the leave to Live 5 News and other outlets within 48 hours.
The hospital responded to Fox News Digital with a 21-word statement that the post does not reflect its views. As of publication: no suspension announced, no termination announced, no reassignment off patient care announced, no California Board of Registered Nursing complaint disclosed.
This is not an oversight. This is the position.
President & CEO: Peter L. Slavin, MD — appointed October 1, 2024 (succeeded Thomas M. Priselac after a 30-year tenure).
Board Chair: David Kaplan.
Setting: Cedars-Sinai is a private nonprofit academic medical center, ~886 licensed beds, consistently ranked in the top 10 hospitals nationally. It receives federal Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement; it operates a Title VII residency program; it has institutional obligations under federal civil-rights law.
The question on the table: Does an institution that serves patients of every political affiliation have a defensible position when a credentialed clinician publicly cheers the attempted murder of the President of the United States, and that institution’s response is “does not reflect our views”?
Three words on X from a credentialed nurse practitioner endorsing the man charged with attempted assassination of a sitting U.S. president. Three other employers, same week, same fact pattern, same outcome: fired or sidelined. One employer, Cedars-Sinai, said the post “doesn’t reflect our views” and went back to work. That is the entire story. The patient sitting in his bed wearing the wrong hat gets to read it and decide whether the institution caring for him took it seriously. The hospital’s answer is in the public record.