Washington — President Trump took to social media on Monday to disparage the political views of actor and director Rob Reiner a day after Reiner and his wife Michele were found dead in their Los Angeles home in what police are calling an apparent homicide.
Nick Reiner, the couple’s son, has been arrested, according to online jail records from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. He was booked on $4 million bail.
Although there is no evidence that has been made public that connects Reiner’s death to his political views, the president linked the director’s killing with what he called his “TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.”
“A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, 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, sometimes referred to as TDS.”
Reiner was a longtime activist and prolific Democratic fundraiser who gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates and causes over the course of his life. And he was also a longtime critic of Mr. Trump, referring to him during his first term as “mentally unfit” and “unqualified” to be president.
Mr. Trump said of Reiner, “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.” His post concluded, “May Rob and Michele rest in peace!”
An official White House account reposted the president’s social media post on Twitter. CBS News has asked the White House if the president has any evidence the Reiners’ deaths were linked to their political views.
The president’s post drew immediate reactions on social media and from lawmakers.
Democratic Rep. Glenn Ivey of Maryland, a former federal prosecutor, told CBS News, “Trump’s statement is sick and dangerous because he suggests the Reiners killings were because they were vocal critics of the Trump administration.” He also criticized the president’s comments as divisive, adding, “This rhetoric divides the country, paints targets on private citizens and risks inciting political violence. A president should lower the temperature, not inflame it.”
Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky wrote on X, “Regardless of how you felt about Rob Reiner, this is inappropriate and disrespectful discourse about a man who was just brutally murdered. I guess my elected GOP colleagues, the VP, and White House staff will just ignore it because they’re afraid? I challenge anyone to defend it.”
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