Donald Trump has sparked a major backlash after issuing an extraordinary attack on filmmaker Rob Reiner following the fatal stabbing of Reiner and his wife, Michele, on Sunday, a case that has since taken a shocking turn with the arrest of their son on homicide charges.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, the President described Reiner as “a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star,” before claiming the couple’s deaths were “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 further alleged that Reiner had driven people “CRAZY” with what he characterised as a raging obsession with his presidency, concluding his message with a brief condolence: “May Rob and Michele rest in peace.”
The remarks drew swift condemnation, including from figures on the political right, many of whom described the post as insensitive and inappropriate given the circumstances of the deaths. Critics argued that Trump’s comments politicised a family tragedy and crossed a line by attacking a man who had just been violently killed.
Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell confirmed that Reiner’s son, Nick Reiner, 32, has been booked on murder charges in connection with the deaths of his parents and is being held on $4 million bail. Authorities have not released further details about the investigation.
Several conservative lawmakers and commentators publicly rebuked Trump’s language. Representative Thomas Massie, a libertarian-leaning critic of the former president, called the post “inappropriate and disrespectful discourse about a man who was just brutally murdered.” Even some of Trump’s own supporters responded directly to his post, urging him to refrain from settling political scores in the immediate aftermath of a violent crime.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, once one of Trump’s most vocal allies, also criticized the remarks, noting that Nick Reiner had previously struggled with drug addiction and accusing Trump of turning a “family tragedy” into a political attack on perceived enemies.
Rob Reiner was widely regarded as one of Hollywood’s most influential directors, responsible for a string of iconic films across the 1980s and 1990s. His body of work included This Is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, A Few Good Men, and Stand By Me, films that cemented his reputation as a defining voice in American cinema.