US President Donald Trump has repeated his criticism of Rob Reiner – after his earlier remarks about the killed Hollywood director, a longtime Trump critic, sparked widespread condemnation.<\/p>\n
The US president told reporters the director was “very bad for our country”, having earlier written on Truth Social that Reiner’s death was linked to “Trump derangement syndrome” – a term he often uses to describe his critics.<\/p>\n
Reiner and his wife Michele Singer Reiner were found dead at their Los Angeles home on Sunday, and police have arrested their son Nick on suspicion of murder.<\/p>\n
They have not suggested any motive in the case, or any evidence that Reiner’s politics and criticism of Trump played any role.<\/p>\n
In his social media post, which called the couple’s deaths “very sad”, Trump criticised Reiner, saying: “He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump.”<\/p>\n
Those comments were widely criticised, including by prominent Republicans.<\/p>\n
Kentucky representative Thomas Massie, a Republican who has clashed with Trump since the president returned to the White House in January, 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.”<\/p>\n
He added: “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.”<\/p>\n
Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was once a staunch supporter of Trump before recently becoming a frequent critic, said that “this is a family tragedy, not about politics or political enemies” and that the murders should be “met with empathy”.<\/p>\n
Multiple other senior members of Trump’s party appeared to distance themselves from the remarks. Senator John Kennedy, a Republican representing Louisiana, said he thought Trump should not have made the comments.<\/p>\n
“I think a wise man once said nothing. Why? Because he was a wise man,” Kennedy said. “I think President Trump should have said nothing. I think when the president says these sorts of things, it detracts from his policy achievements.”<\/p>\n
Reiner was a lifelong Democrat and prominent liberal activist, and frequently spoke out against Trump.<\/p>\n
In 2017, for example, he called Trump “mentally unfit” for office. And as recently as October, Reiner said he believed Trump was ushering in an age of “full-on autocracy” in the US.<\/p>\n
Hours after his social media post, Trump repeated his thoughts on Reiner in comments given in the Oval Office to reporters, describing the director as a “deranged person” who was partly “behind” previous claims of collusion between Russia and Trump’s team.<\/p>\n
“I was not a fan of Rob Reiner at all, in any way, shape or form,” he said.<\/p>\n
Trump has in the past criticised political foes after their death.<\/p>\n
Following the death of Arizona Senator John McCain – with whom he clashed regularly – in 2019, for example, Trump said that Trump said that he “was never a fan” and “never will be”.<\/p>\n
In another incident the same year, Trump quipped that the late Democratic lawmaker John Dingell could be “looking up” at him from the grave, a comment which was widely interpreted as a suggestion that Dingell was in hell.<\/p>\n
In a statement following the remarks about Dingell, the White House said that the president was “just riffing”.<\/p>\n
Reiner, who was 78, was known for directing several iconic films in a variety of genres, including This is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, Misery and A Few Good Men.<\/p>\n
He married Michele, an actress, photographer and producer, in 1989, later recalling that they met during the making of one of his best-known films, When Harry Met Sally. The couple had three children together – including Nick, 32.<\/p>\n
Michele, 68, owned the Reiner Light photography agency and production house.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US President Donald Trump has repeated his criticism of Rob Reiner – after his earlier remarks about the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-348680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}