Months before his slaying, Rob Reiner talked about the power of forgiveness after the “horrific” assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.
“Horror. An absolute horror,” the director, actor and political activist said when asked about the shooting in a TV interview with Piers Morgan. “I unfortunately saw the video of it and it’s beyond belief what happened to him, and that should never happen to anybody. I don’t care what your political beliefs are. That’s not acceptable.”
Contrast that with President Trump’s reaction to the killing of Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, who on Sunday were found stabbed to death in their Brentwood home. Their son, Nick Reiner, has been arrested in connection with the slayings.
“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 said in a social media post.
“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!”
How is that anyone’s initial reaction to a tragic slaying, let alone an official comment from a sitting U.S. president? That’s a rhetorical question, of course. It’s just another Monday at Trump’s White House.
I’d be screaming into the void if I were to use the rest of this column to argue that the president is not only off his rocker but also has tumbled down the stairs and is in the foyer, mumbling something about speedboats, piggies and ballrooms. In his race to the bottom, he’s broken through the floor. Now we’re in the Trump Upside Down, where empathy and decency are negative attributes.
Even Republican lawmakers were compelled to speak out against their feared leader. “This is a family tragedy, not about politics or political enemies,” said Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in response to Trump’s post.
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) wrote on X, “Regardless of one’s political views, no one should be subjected to violence, let alone at the hands of their own son. It’s a horrible tragedy that should engender sympathy and compassion from everyone in our country, period.”
Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said it short and sweet to CNN’s Jake Tapper: “I’d expect to hear something like this from a drunk guy at a bar, not the President of the United States. Can the President be presidential?”
No, he cannot. When given the chance on Monday to appear leader-like during a White House news conference, Trump doubled down on his dislike for Reiner, saying he “wasn’t a fan” and that the director “was a deranged person.”
Translation: Reiner was a Trump critic and the president has skin so thin it’s practically rice paper at this point. But the filmmaker’s social conscience was evident in everything he did, starting with his role as “All in the Family’s” liberal, hippie son-in law to conservative crank Archie Bunker. It was the 1970s, and Meathead (a.k.a. Michael) consistently called out Archie’s racism, bigotry and sexism on the weekly sitcom. Archie’s rants are now the ugly stuff embraced by feckless politicians and attention-seeking influencers, but back then, his tirades against “queers” and “coloreds” represented old prejudices that needed to be shed if the country were to move forward. Show creator Norman Lear made the ugliness funny by using Meathead to expose Archie’s ignorance. Even back then, Reiner was poking the bear.
Reiner was a staunch critic of Trump and other leaders and movements that sought to curtail the freedoms that were previously believed to be enshrined in the Constitution — until MAGA began shredding them one by one. The comedian was an advocate for democratic ideals, Democratic candidates, same-sex marriage, early childhood education, and government transparency, spearheading California’s Proposition 10 (First 5) to fund early development programs via tobacco taxes. He also helped overturn Proposition 8, California’s brief ban on gay marriage.
Reiner’s understanding that it takes all kinds was evident in his work. He was a director with range, as they say in the industry, helming a string of films that became cultural touchstones, starting with 1984’s groundbreaking mockumentary “This Is Spinal Tap,” a satire that forever changed the language around heavy-metal decibel levels (“Crank it to 11!”). Then came 1986’s coming-of-age drama “Stand by Me,” 1989’s seminal romantic comedy “When Harry Met Sally…,” and the terrifying, psychological horror-thriller, 1990’s “Misery,” about an injured novelist held captive by his biggest fan.
Some of his films directly addressed the inequity and violence that Reiner fought so hard to correct in his lifetime. “Ghosts of Mississippi” explored the 1994 trial of Byron De La Beckwith, a white supremacist accused of the 1963 assassination of civil rights activist Medgar Evers. And Reiner’s 2017 drama “Shock and Awe” told the true story of a team of reporters who countered the Bush administration’s justification for invading Iraq in 2003 when they found evidence of falsified intelligence about weapons of mass destruction.
Though it was already acceptable to speak out against that Middle Eastern war, in the same week of the film’s release, he caught flak for signing a petition led by Palestinian director Annemarie Jacir condemning Trump’s 2017 decision formally recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Reiner, who was Jewish, told the National that Trump had “no concept of geopolitical events or how things are interconnected. There was no consideration that went into this decision, no outreach to allies in the Arab world, or even the non-Arab world to see what the impact of something like this is.”
Reiner saw tragedy and sadness in the death of Kirk because he was able to empathize with the loss of life, no matter the difference of opinion.
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