I voted for Donald Trump for president three times, and would again, but his social media post about Rob Reiner after the recent killing of the leftist Hollywood actor-director was unpresidential and, to say the least, uncharitable. But it was an unforced error that Trump will have the opportunity next week to make amends for.
The president should seize that opportunity, because the Dec. 15 Truth Social post also was stooping to the level of Trump’s left-wing extremist critics in being petty and vindictive.
“A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood,” Trump wrote. “Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented, movie director and comedy star, has passed away … 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.”
The president continued: “He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights … .”
Setting aside that non sequitur cause-and-effect assessment of the motive for the killing, Reiner—a self-described “raging liberal”—might not have been the Patient Zero of Trump Derangement Syndrome that besets so many on the Left, but he was certainly a primary vector in its spread.
The following are representative of the innumerable hateful and vitriolic social media posts Reiner—one of whose films, coincidentally, was the 1995 dramedy “The American President”—had made about Trump:
· “The President of the United States is mentally ill.” (April 5, 2020)
· “Time for Donald Trump to exit the White House and enter prison.” (July 1, 2020)
· “Donald Trump is a symbol of hate.” (July 6, 2020)
· “Trump needs to be arrested for sedition, treason, and inciting violence.” (Jan. 6, 2021)
And on Dec. 13, 2017, at the Dubai International Film Festival to promote his then-new docudrama critical of the Iraq War, “Shock and Awe,” Reiner told Variety: “Donald Trump is the single most unqualified human being to ever assume the presidency of the United States. He is mentally unfit.”
Reiner also was one of the foremost promoters of the “Russia, Russia, Russia” collusion hoax. The so-called Committee to Investigate Russia, a left-wing nonprofit he founded in 2017, was intended to hamstring Trump’s presidency through endless investigations.
So, while the impulse to respond in kind is perhaps understandable, Trump would be better served if he would resist the urge to get down in the gutter with his political enemies, who call him every name in the book (“Hitler,” “fascist,” “dictator,” and “racist,” among many others).
But given a chance later in the day to backpedal from his impetuous criticism of Reiner, Trump instead doubled down, telling reporters the Hollywood mogul “became like 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 the country.”
Interestingly, none of this mutual contempt was even alluded to, much less addressed directly, in a hastily compiled documentary encomium-eulogy, “Rob Reiner: Scenes From a Life,” that aired Dec. 21 on CBS-TV.
Instead, it was Jenna Ellis, a former Trump lawyer, who put this terrible episode in its proper perspective.
“A man and his wife were murdered [Dec. 14]. This is NOT the appropriate response,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “The Right uniformly condemned political and celebratory responses to Charlie Kirk’s death. This is a horrible example from Trump (and surprising, considering the two attempts on his own life) and should be condemned by everyone with any decency.”
Even before Trump’s intemperate remarks, conservative podcaster Jack Posobiec had written: “You won’t see people on the right celebrating the horrific murder of Rob Reiner and his wife. Compare to the Left’s reaction to Charlie Kirk’s murder.”
The latter was a reference to the countless videos on TikTok and elsewhere in which unhinged leftists took unspeakably ghoulish glee in the assassination of the youthful conservative activist at an outdoor rally at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10.
It would have been more presidential for Trump to react to the slaying of Reiner, 78—along with his wife, Michelle, 70, reportedly at the hands of their son Nick, 32—akin to the way Reiner reacted to Kirk’s killing.
“Horror. An absolute horror,” Reiner said of the Kirk assassination on Piers Morgan’s “Uncensored” podcast on Sept. 26. “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.”
Alternatively, Trump could have followed his own presidential precedent with respect to another political opponent.
When informed Sept. 18, 2020, by a reporter about the death of liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the president was properly respectful.
“[Y]ou’re telling me now for the first time,” he said. “She led an amazing life. What else can you say? She was an amazing woman. Whether you agreed or not, she was an amazing woman who led an amazing life. I’m actually saddened to hear that. I am saddened to hear that.”
At minimum, Trump could have heeded the age-old aphorism: “If you can’t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything.”
So, when Nick Reiner is arraigned in Los Angeles on two counts of murder on Jan. 7, Trump should rise to the occasion and take the opportunity to apologize and find something nice to say about his erstwhile adversary.
It would be the right thing to do.
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