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President Donald Trump sparked disbelief and outrage on Monday when he appeared to revel in the tragic killing of Hollywood director Rob Reiner and his wife, blaming their deaths on the fact that the iconic director was critical of his presidency.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the couple’s deaths were “very sad,” but went on to say that Reiner was “tortured and struggling” and angering people with his “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
Reiner died “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME,” Trump wrote.
“He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before,” Trump went on.
Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, were found stabbed to death in their home in Los Angeles on Sunday, police said. The couple’s son, Nick Reiner, was arrested as a suspect in the killing. The motive for the killing is currently unclear.
Rob Reiner was a beloved Hollywood figure, first as an actor in the sitcom “All in the Family,” and later as the director of popular films like This Is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally…, and A Few Good Men.
He was an outspoken critic of Trump, and spoke about his family’s resistance to the Red Scare and the Vietnam War in the 1950s and 1960s in interviews. In 2024, he produced a documentary on Christian nationalism in the U.S. that tied the far right ideology to the rise of Trump, called God & Country.
Trump’s post was immediately lambasted online as extremely insensitive and a low even for a person known for offensive and self-centered remarks.
“He’s just lost it. Now saying Rob and Michele Reiner caused their own murder because they didn’t support him. So sick,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut).
“The sitting President of the United States looked at the death of Rob Reiner and decided it was an opportunity to ‘score’ political points,” said Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) on X. “There is no limit to how low he is willing to go — and that speaks volumes about how dangerously unfit he is to lead.”
Some Republicans critical of Trump also condemned his comments, including Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), who said they were “disrespectful.”
Many commentators noted that Trump’s remarks were hypocritical, considering the fact that the right has spent months hunting down and punishing people for criticizing far right activist Charlie Kirk after his death. The State Department even went so far as to revoke visas of immigrants, saying that the U.S. should not host “foreigners who wish death on Americans.”
The White House gloated about Trump’s remarks, posting a screenshot of the president’s post on the White House rapid response’s X account.
“600 people were fired from their jobs for making jokes about Charlie Kirk and the official White House Rapid Response account is gleefully posting Trump’s disgusting post about the horrific murder of Rob Reiner,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council.
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