A Florida nurse has been fired for an expletive-laden TikTok post in which she wished physical harm on White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Lexie Lawler, who worked at Baptist Health Boca Raton Regional Hospital, took to the social media site to say she hoped that Leavitt, 28, who is expecting her second baby with husband Nicholas Roccio, would endure a painful birth.
"As a labor and delivery nurse, it gives me great joy to wish Karoline Leavitt a fourth-degree tear,” Lawler said in the since-deleted video, versions of which are still circulating online. “I hope that you f***ing rip from bow to stern and never sh** normally again, you c***.”
The hospital issued a statement on Friday, January 23, confirming Lawler had been terminated following backlash to her TikTok post.
"The comments made in a social media video by a nurse at one of our facilities do not reflect our values or the standards we expect of healthcare professionals," a spokesperson for the hospital said in a statement published by The Palm Beach Post. "Following a prompt review, the individual is no longer employed by our health system.”
They added: “While we respect the right to personal opinions, there is no place in healthcare for language or behavior that calls into question a caregiver's ability to provide compassionate, unbiased care.”
Boca Raton's Mayor, Scott Singer, posted on Facebook that Lawler’s “disgusting comments have no place in medicine or in our community.”
Lawler herself appeared unrepentant when she took to social media again over the weekend following the death of fellow nurse Alex Pretti, who was killed by federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday while protesting the immigration crackdown currently unfolding in the city.
“They murdered a man in Minnesota and you motherf***ers are coming after me because I used bad language? F*** you. I’m on the right side of this. F*** you,” Lawler said while holding up her middle finger.
A GoFundMe account set up by Lawler’s husband had raised nearly $7,000 as of Monday morning, towards a fundraising goal of $14,000 for “employment and civil rights counsel.”
“She is a liberal woman who used her personal social media — on her own time — to sharply criticize a public figure tied to a cruel, harmful administration. Her words were blunt, angry, and unapologetic,” the GoFundMe page states. “They were directed at power, not her workplace.”
Tim Lawler shared the fundraiser on Facebook, where he said that anyone who was not outraged by the Trump administration was “not paying attention”. In comments on the post he added that he and his wife “were not going to be silenced.”
“Support free speech one dollar at a time.”
The Florida Board of Nursing does not appear to have initiated formal disciplinary action against Lawler, despite calls from some, including Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, to revoke her nursing license over the “vile” comments.
“The Florida Board of Nursing should yank this vile person’s license, immediately. She doesn’t belong anywhere near patients,” Uthmeier said in a post on X.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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