Less than a day after acclaimed film director Rob Reiner was found dead in his Los Angeles home, President Donald Trump posited without evidence that the Hollywood icon was killed because he was critical of Trump.
Reiner and his wife, photographer Michele Singer Reiner, were found dead in their home Sunday, according to police, who said they are investigating the deaths as homicides. Authorities have released little other information, including about a possible motive. Nick Reiner, the 32-year-old son of the director and photographer, was arrested late Sunday on unspecified charges.
Trump, however, asserted in a social media post Monday that Reiner’s death was somehow connected to the president.
“A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. 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,” Trump wrote on his social media platform.
Trump went on to add: “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. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!”
Representatives for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. Trump’s post drew immediate backlash from across the ideological spectrum, including from some prominent right-wing figures.
Reiner — who directed such classics as “This is Spinal Tap,” “Stand by Me,” “When Harry Met Sally…” and “A Few Good Men” — was a longtime supporter of Democratic causes and candidates. He opposed the Iraq War, helped lead the fight for marriage equality in California and advocated for early-childhood education, among other issues.
Reiner was also a vocal critic of Trump, starting with his first term. In a 2017 interview with Vanity Fair, Reiner called Trump “mentally unfit” to be president. Reiner and his wife produced “God & Country,” a documentary released last year that explored the rise of Christian nationalism in America.
In October, Reiner told MS NOW that he feared the United States was becoming an autocracy, describing the Trump administration’s pressures on the media and entertainment industries as “beyond McCarthy era-esque.”
“Make no mistake: We have a year before this country becomes a full-on autocracy and democracy completely leaves us,” Reiner said then.
Trump’s social media post about Reiner comes after his allies called for consequences for those who posted anything they deemed offensive or insensitive about the September assassination of Charlie Kirk, a Trump ally and founder of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA.
In what would be one of Reiner’s last interviews, the director told Piers Morgan in September that he felt “absolute horror” at Kirk’s murder.
“That should never happen to anybody. I don’t care what your political beliefs are. That’s not acceptable. That’s not a solution to solving problems,” he said then.
Mariana Alfaro contributed to this report.
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