Rob Reiner’s powerful legacy puts sick and twisted Trump to shame

Trump’s attack on a man who’d just been murdered was a new low. And it exposed how petrified the debilitating dictator is of people who use their stature to speak out.

I first met actor, producer and director Rob Reiner and photographer Michele Singer Reiner some 15 years. I was on the road with my SiriusXM show, broadcasting from The Abbey, a legendary West Hollywood gay cafe and bar.

We were deep in the fight for marriage equality, and the Reiners were leading the charge against Proposition 8, the ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage in California in 2008. They had helped found the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which eventually took the case all the way to Supreme Court. They came on the show to talk about the fight.

It turned out that both of them were avid listeners of my program—Michele, in fact, listened for three hours a day—and they knew the regular guests and even some of the regular callers. This blew me away, of course. But it shouldn’t have. Rob Reiner’s commitment to civil rights was deep. It wasn’t just a cause that he and his wife threw some money at—though they donated millions to causes over their lifetimes.

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They immersed themselves in the issues, soaking up as much news and information as they could, so that they’d be informed activists and could use their influence to pressure people in power. I was honored to be one place they were turning to for details on the fight they would help lead to victory.

Over the years Rob Reiner came on the program many times, including just last year when he produced the documentary, “God and Country,” based on Katherine Stewart’s book "The Power Worshippers,” warning of the dangers of Christian nationalism and how theocrats were cementing their relationship with Donald Trump. His and his wife’s deaths are simply gut-wrenching.

At the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, July 2016

Reiner was a big voice, from his days as a sitcom star on the iconic “All in the Family” to his years as an actor, director, and producer of films that had a big impact on American culture. And he used that voice to speak fervently in defending democracy against Trump’s authoritarianism.

That’s why Trump, upon Reiner’s death, couldn’t help but try to defile Reiner, but only defiled himself, and in a much bigger way than usual. Trump wrote a really sick screed on Truth Social yesterday that even had his own fans and some GOP members of Congress lambasting him, another example of how he’s losing his grip.

Trump claimed that Reiner, found stabbed to death with Michele in their LA home, died “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.”

This was so appalling—and a new low — because besides being grotesquely callous, Trump was putting out the message that those who speak against him can and will pay a price. It was another call to violence and revenge, and it was also an attempt to force himself into the tragic story. (Law enforcement arrested the Reiner’s 32-year-old son Nick, who suffered from drug addiction and mental illness, on murder charges; this had nothing to do with Rob Reiner’s political beliefs).

But the blowback was strong even from some in MAGA—on Truth Social itself, many in Trump’s own base responded to his post with disgust—and Trump in the end only let people see just how much his power is receding. Robby Starbuck, a MAGA influencer and big Trump supporter, slammed him hard.

“What happened last night to Rob Reiner and his wife was a savage butchering of 2 human lives. I don’t care what their politics were or how they felt about Trump, no law abiding human deserves this. We should pray for + send condolences to his loved ones and NOT make it political,” Starbuck wrote on X.

Others pointed to the glaring double standard in the response to Charlie Kirk’s assassination—with MAGA lashing out at anyone who even criticized Kirk, calling for ramifications—and this horrible murder. That includes the spokesperson for Kirk’s Turning Point USA, who wrote: “Rob Reiner responded with grace and compassion to Charlie’s assassination. This video [of Reiner responding to Kirk’s death with sadness] makes it all the more painful to hear of he and his wife’s tragic end. May God be close to the broken hearted in this terrible story.”

Piers Morgan, Trump’s sensationalist buddy, said, “This is a dreadful thing to say about a man who just got murdered by his troubled son. Delete it, Mr President.” And Marjorie Taylor Greene excoriated Trump again.

Right wing Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie wrote: “Regardless of how you felt about Rob Reiner, this is inappropriate and disrespectful discourse about a man who was just brutally murdered. 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.”

Speaker Mike Johnson ran away from reporters—saying he doesn’t “do ongoing commentary about everything that’s said by everybody in government every day”—when he usually defends every vile statement Trump makes. (And Senate Majority Leader John Thune also ducked the question about Trump’s screed while sending “sympathies and prayers” to the Reiner family.)

This may seem like the same few voices but rather than get universal defense of his statements, Trump found himself the target of a lot of disgust and anger from his own base, and yet more criticism from those GOP politicians who’ve been speaking up in recent weeks. He also didn’t get any support inside the White House, even off the record. Reporter Asawin Suebsaeng, formerly of Rolling Stone and now at Zeteo, who has a lot of sources in the White House who often offer him comments on Trump, noted this:

We reached out to several Trump administration officials, advisers, and close allies immediately after the president posted that. Only a couple replied, and weren’t even willing to try to justify the comments, off the record or otherwise. The White House did not immediately respond to Zeteo’s request for comment.

Many Americans who don’t pay attention to politics pay attention in moments like this, when there’s a gruesome murder of a beloved Hollywood figure whose politics they may not have known but whose work they liked. And to see the president, who some of them supported, speaking in this way was probably jarring. It’s the kind of thing that wakes people up, like the Jimmy Kimmel saga. The entire attack backfired spectacularly on Trump.

And it also showed how effective Rob Reiner was as an activist. Even in his death he caused the insecure, narcissistic Trump to unravel, to face humiliation from his own supporters—and his own White House—and expose his loosening grip on MAGA. I think Reiner would see it as a badge of honor.