Trump doubles down on Rob Reiner attack: ‘Very bad for our country’

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As Hollywood mourns Rob Reiner’s murder, U.S. President Donald Trump is sticking to his stance that the actor-director’s left-leaning politics are responsible for his death, which allegedly came at the hands of his son Nick.

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In a message shared hours after the bodies of Reiner and his wife Michele were discovered in their Los Angeles mansion, Trump posted to Truth Social that the couple died because of “the anger (Reiner) caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.”

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Reiner, Trump continued, “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 despite his personal connection to Michele Reiner — the one-time photographer who shot the cover image for Trump’s The Art of the Deal, Trump doubled down on his criticism of the filmmaker when he was speaking to reporters inside the White House hours after his social media message went viral.

“I wasn’t a fan of his at all, in any way shape or form. He was a deranged person as far as Trump is concerned,” Trump said of Reiner, and referring to himself in the third person. “He hurt himself career-wise. He became a deranged person. Trump Derangement Syndrome. So I was not a fan of Rob Reiner, at all. In any way, shape or form. I thought he was very bad for our country.”

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Celebs blast Trump for response to Reiner’s death

Trump’s Truth Social post was retweeted by the White House and immediately inflamed the president’s critics.

Rocker Jack White called Trump a “vile, egomaniac, loser, child” in a scathing message shared to his Instagram account.

“Neither he nor any one of his followers can defend this gross, horrible insult to a beautiful artist who gave the world so much. To use someone’s tragic death to promote your own vanity and fascist authoritarian agenda is a corrupt and narcissistic sin. Shame on you Trump and anyone who defends this,” White wrote.

Frozen star Josh Gad said Reiner “was 1000 times the man you are” in a scathing Threads rant. He also gave Trump “a preview” of how he’ll be remembered when he dies.

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“‘Congrats on your first class ticket to Hell. He did the impossible as POTUS & made Buchanan look like Abraham Lincoln. A man so sick and horrible, even his wife couldn’t look at him or hold his hand,” Gad wrote. “‘The only freedoms he ever fought for were for pedophiles, criminals and traitors. May the memory of him be as short as his reported d*** size. The gold on his s***ter is more valuable than his legacy.’”

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On Monday’s episode of The View, Whoopi Goldberg, who worked with Reiner on 1996’s Ghosts of Mississippi, lashed out at Trump.

“I don’t understand the man in that White House, because he talked so much about Charlie Kirk and caring,” TheView moderator said. “And, suddenly, this is what he puts out. Have you no shame? No shame at all? Can you get any lower? I don’t think so.”

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Pro-Trump supporter James Woods, who also acted in Reiner’s Ghosts of Mississippi, said hearing people say “horrible things about Rob” was “infuriating and distasteful.”

“Rob literally saved my career and really put me back on track in a way that was so important and rewarding in my life. He really fought for me when a studio didn’t want me in a movie,” Woods said during an appearance on Fox News. “I went from really being basically out of a job to getting an Academy Award nomination, and I give all the credit to Rob.”

Woods said that despite his political differences with Reiner, the movie maker was “a real thinker” and “a lot of people just don’t think anymore.”

What did Reiner say about Trump?

Reiner was politically minded and one of Hollywood’s most vocal Democrat activists who repeatedly clashed with Trump. In 2017, Reiner told Variety he thought Trump was “mentally unfit” to lead America.

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“Donald Trump is the single-most unqualified human-being to ever assume the Presidency of the United States. He is mentally unfit. Not only does he not understand how government works, he has no interest in trying to find out how it works,” Reiner said at the time.

In October, Reiner warned that the United States had only a year before tuning into a “full-on autocracy.”

“Make no mistake — we have a year before this country becomes a full-on autocracy, and democracy completely leaves us,” Reiner said in an interview with MSNBC’s Ali Velshi. “And we’re looking at the election in 2026, and Donald Trump knows that in a free and fair election, he will lose. He will lose the House, the House will flip and will become in Democratic hands. There will be committee chairs who will be able to hold meetings, and this is the last thing he wants.”

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The A Few Good Men director said Trump’s constant demand that frequent critic Jimmy Kimmel be fired by ABC was proof that the commander-in-chief was trying to “control the media.”

“The two big things that an autocrat needs. They need control of the media, which is what they’re trying to do. And they need military control of the streets. And that’s the other thing that we’re seeing. So we’re in it right now, and we’re sliding downhill in a very, very fast way, and we have to find a way to stop it,” Reiner said.

Reiner and his wife were both found dead in their Brentwood home on Sunday afternoon by their daughter. Nick, 32, was arrested several hours later and is currently being held on $4-million bail.

Investigators speaking to the Associated Press said the couple died from stab wounds with reports that their throats had been slit.

mdaniell@postmedia.com

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