9 unhinged Donald Trump moments as deeply misjudged Rob Reiner feedback threat large backlash
Trump made a bid to blame the victims for their own deaths, and make a deeply sad family tragedy all about him. Meanwhile, he tried to back up a legal argument by quoting…Liz Truss
Donald Trump deeply misjudged his response to the deaths of Rob and Michele Reiner, and he’s incapable of understanding why. In the hours after the pair were murdered in their home, when barely any information was out there, Trump made a bid to blame the victims for their own deaths, and make a deeply sad family tragedy all about him. He accused Reiner of suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome”, and said he was “known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump.”
It was far from the first time Trump has spoken ill of the recently dead. He slagged off John McCain after his death from cancer and suggested Democrat lawmaker John Dingell had gone to hell. He said Jimmy Carter had “died a happy man” because he was only the second worst President of all time, after Joe Biden, whom Trump continues to attack even as he’s treated for cancer.
But Trump’s outburst has provoked the kind of visceral anger and revulsion – even among his own party – normally reserved for an attack on a friend or relative.
Why? Because Rob Reiner didn’t make movies. In the great tradition of American storytellers like Walt Disney and Stephen Spielberg. Like Mark Twain, Jim Henson and Gene Roddenberry. Rob Reiner told the stories we grew up with, and they are deeply woven into the fabric of countless lives. It’s like a song being the soundtrack to a perfect summer, except it’s not just a song, it’s Grandpa telling you he’s just going to read the good bits, or Harry looking straight down the lens and telling you he wants the rest of his life to start as soon as possible. It’s Kathy Bates with a lump hammer, ‘I’ll have what she’s having’, ‘These go to eleven’, ‘You can’t handle the truth’, ‘inconceivable’, ‘as you wish’ and ‘my name is Inigo Montoya’. To a huge number of people across the world, the characters in his films feel like old, dear friends. More than almost any other filmmaker, Rob Reiner didn’t make movies, he made memories. And memories are deeply personal.
Meanwhile in Trumpworld
- Republicans did NOT like his Rob Reiner comments
- But he somehow made them even worse
- He filed his $10bn BBC lawsuit
- And entered a Liz Truss quote as evidence
- he kind of shrugged about the Brown shooting
Here’s everything you need to know
1. Republicans really didn’t like what he said about Rob Reiner
Almost immediately after Trump posted his vile attack on Rob and Michele Reiner’s memory, even members of his own party were rushing to distance themselves from it. Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, said: “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.”
Marjorie Taylor Greene, once a MAGA darling but now on the outs after falling out with the President in spectacular fashion, said: “This is a family tragedy, not about politics or political enemies.”
Senator John Kennedy was about as critical as you can hope for from a Louisiana Republican in 2025, saying: “I think a wise man once said nothing. Why? Because he was a wise man. I think President Trump should have said nothing. I think when the president says these sorts of things, it detracts from his policy achievements.”
Mike Lawler, a Republican congressman from New York said the President’s comments were “wrong.”
“Regardless of one’s political views, no one should be subjected to violence, let alone at the hands of their own son,” he said. “It’s a horrible tragedy that should engender sympathy and compassion from everyone in our country, period.”
Even Trump supporter James Woods gave a heartfelt comment on his old friend: “I judge people by how they treat me, and Rob Reiner was a Godsend in my life. We got along great, we loved each other… He was always on my side,” Woods said.
“When people would say to me, ‘What do you think of his politics?’ I would say, ‘I think Rob Reiner is a great patriot. Do I agree on many of his ideas on how that patriotism should be enacted, to celebrate the America that we both love? No. He doesn’t agree with me either, but he also respects my patriotism. We had a different path to the same destination, which was a country we both love.” He added, “Because you disagree with people doesn’t mean that you have to hate people.”
2. People pointed out the hipocrisy
Many have noted the apparent double standard in Trump’s – and MAGA’s – responses to Reiner’s death and the death of Charlie Kirk.
Hundreds of people were suspended from or lost their jobs for failing to be sufficiently mournful or respectful following the far-right influencer’s murder, including some who noted Kirk’s history of unpleasant rhetoric about women, immigrants and a host of other groups.
“I don’t understand the man in the White House. He spoke at length about Charlie Kirk and about caring,” Actor Whoopi Goldberg said. “And then this is what he puts out. Have you no shame? No shame at all? Can you get any lower? I don’t think so.”
3. Trump somehow managed to make it worse
Trump was asked about his comments in the Oval Office, and somehow managed to sink even lower – coming pretty close to saying he didn’t mind that Reiner was dead, because he was “very bad for our country.”
“Well, I wasn’t a fan of his at all,” Trump said, asked if he would stand by his comments. “He was a deranged person as far as Trump is concerned. He said… he liked… he knew it was false. In fact, it’s the exact opposite, that I was a friend of Russia, controlled by Russia. You know, the Russia hoax. He was one of the people behind it. I think he hurt himself career-wise, he became like a deranged person. Trump Derangement Syndrome.
“So I was not a fan of Rob Reiner at all, in any shape or form. I thought he was very bad for our country.”
4. Of course, Mike Johnson wouldn’t comment…
Add another item to the list of horrendous things Trump has done that House Speaker Mike Johnson doesn’t want to talk about.
Caught by reporters in a Capitol corridor, the ever-courageous Johnson said: “I don’t do ongoing commentary about everything that’s said by everybody in government every day.”
5. Trump files $10 billion BBC lawsuit in Florida
Donald Trump is suing the BBC for $10 billion over the editing of his January 6th speech in an episode of Panorama, in Florida, where the programme is not broadcast.
The fatuous 33-page lawsuit accuses the BBC “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction of President Trump,” calling it “a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence” the 2024 US presidential election.
The edit was painted as deceptive and unfair by a number of apparently serious UK newspapers and commentators, despite being broadly standard practice and something broadcast editors do every single day. It took two passages from his lengthy speech that accurately reflected the tone and content.
Yet, Trump has apparently been given the impression that the BBC used AI or selective editing to invent quotes that he didn’t say – which is absolutely not what happened. “They actually put terrible words in my mouth having to do with Jan. 6 that I didn’t say, and they’re beautiful words, that I said, right?” the president said unprompted during an appearance in the Oval Office. “They’re beautiful words, talking about patriotism and all of the good things that I said. They didn’t say that, but they put terrible words.”
For the record, Trump called for fighting or violence dozens of times in the speech. He called for “peaceful” protest once, and was basically winking as he said it.
6. Trump quotes Liz Truss to back up his claim
If there were ever an indication that Trump – or at least one of his lawyers – wasn’t taking his BBC lawsuit entirely seriously, it’s this.
It reads: “No less an authority than the United Kingdom’s former prime minister, Liz Truss, discussed this bias, the need to hold the BBC accountable, and the BBC’s pattern of actual malice.”
No less an authority….
7. Trump dismisses Brown University shooting investigation as ‘a school problem’
Asked if Kash Patel had told him why it had been so difficult to find the shooter who killed two students and injuded nine others in a mass shootng at Brown University in Providence, Rode Island, Trump kind of shrugged.
“It’s always difficult, so far we’ve done a really good job of doing it,” he said. “With Charlie, with the various times this has happened they’ve done it pretty much record time.
“But, uh, you’d really have to ask the school a little bit more about that. Because, you know, this was a school problem.”
8. No autopen, ever. Apart from sometimes
While signing a document in the Oval last night, Trump remarked “No autopen. None. Ever. We don’t like autopens, right? We don’t like autopens.”
Which is weird, because in March he admitted he used Autopens all the time.
“Yeah, only for very unimportant papers,” he said, asked by reporters if he’d ever used one. “And I don’t call them unimportant if you do letters where people would love to have a response. And I’ll sign them whenever I can, but when I can’t I would use an autopen.”
And why not? It’s a time saving device that every president has used for decades. And the Justice department’s legal counsel declared in 2005 that documents signed with the autopen were legally binding.
9. Trump moans that he can’t get election machine meddling felon out of jail
Trump loudly complained last night that he can’t get election machine meddler Tina Peters out of prison.
Peters, a former election official, who last August was convicted of tampering with voting machines in the 2020 election, is serving nine years in prison. Republican Peters, 70, helped breach the election computer systems in Mesa County, Colorado, and ordered security cameras disabled to allow a former pro-surfer affiliated with Mike Lindell, the pillow magnate, election denier and serial conspiracy theorist, to access them. Despite her being tried by a grand jury, and convicted by a jury of her peers, Trump has repeatedly called for her to be released. He has offered to pardon her himself, but as she was convicted at the state level, he has no power to free her. So instead he repeatedly goes on television to lie about what she did, and pressure the Governor of Colorado to let her off.
“She caught people cheating,” Trump lied last night in the Oval. It’s nonsense, the records Peters allowed to be extracted and released showed no evidence of manipulation or fraud.
“They said she was cheating, she wasn’t cheating. She went over, she looked at one of the election scams going on, and because she did that they put her in jail for nine years.” Again, not true. She was jailed for allowing an unauthorised person to access the secure election system in her county, and having the cameras turned off to cover her tracks. A jury found her guilty of three counts of Attempting to Influence a Public Servant (felony), Conspiracy to Commit Criminal Impersonation (felony), First-Degree Official Misconduct (misdemeanor), Violation of Duty (misdemeanor), Failure to Comply with Secretary of State Requirements (misdemeanor).
Neither is it true, as Trump claimed, that she is being held in a “high intensity prison.” Peters is being held at La Vista Correctional Facility in Pueblo, Colorado, which is a medium-security (level III) facility.
