A former adviser to Donald Trump has slammed the MAGA president’s response to the shocking and grisly murder of a beloved film director and his wife.
“My condolences go out to the Reiner family. It’s a terrible tragedy that they’ve suffered here and the president’s tweets, his Truth Social post, is indefensible by anybody. I don’t know how anyone can defend it,” David Urban, who advised on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, told CNN on Monday.
“It’s just saddening because the president does a lot of good things, this administration does lots of good things, but yet these kinds of posts, these kinds of actions by the president detract from all of that,” he added.
Rob Reiner, 78, and his wife Michele, 68 were found brutally slain in their Los Angeles home Sunday. The couple’s son, Nick Reiner, has been booked on murder charges in connection with their deaths.
News of the pair’s murder came after a deadly shooting at Brown University claimed two lives and injured nine people on Saturday, followed swiftly on Sunday by a terror attack at a Jewish holiday event in Sydney that saw at least 15 people killed and up to 40 wounded in what’s been described as Australia’s worst mass shooting in decades.
After a weekend of unspeakable violence, the president chimed in on the Reiners’ deaths in a Truth Social post where he attributed the killing of the director—known for such beloved cinematic hits as Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally, and The Princess Bride—to a case of “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
“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.
“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!”
“TDS” is a term often used by the president and his MAGA base to dismiss criticism of the movement as irrational or hysterical.
Urban is far from alone in having reacted to Trump’s post with a mix of shock and horror, with even the president’s own supporters turning on him for his gross insensitivity to the tragedy.
“When people say horrible things about Rob right now, I find it, quite frankly, infuriating and distasteful,” actor James Woods, otherwise a known fan of the Republican president, told Fox News on Monday.
In his sit-down with CNN, Urban was further at pains to stress how Reiner’s murder followed not long after the assassination of far-right activist Charlie Kirk, a death to which the president offered a very different response.
“I thought after Charlie Kirk’s assassination we, as a country, reached a consensus on how we respond to these things on the right and the left,” he told the network. “I thought that one of the few good things that came out of Charlie Kirk’s death was that people came together and recognized that the people who were celebrating Charlie Kirk’s death should be condemned. Rob Reiner, in fact, actually praised Erika Kirk’s statement and condemned the shooter there.”
The strategist, who helped forge Trump’s victory in the 2016 election, also warned the president his reaction to the tragedy was almost certain to stick in voters’ minds ahead of next year’s crucial midterm elections.
“I think the president forgot elections are about addition, one plus one plus one,” he said. “As we head into the midterms, I’m wondering how many Republicans were added to the voter rolls today. I think none.”
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