Fox hosts in livid conflict over Trump mocking Rob Reiner’s homicide: ‘We ought to name out proper from mistaken’
Fox News hosts have clashed over Donald Trump’s highly insensitive mocking of Rob Reiner’s murder.
Reiner, 78, and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, 70, were found stabbed to death in their Los Angeles home on Sunday. Their 32-year-old son, Nick Reiner, has been arrested on suspicion of murder and is being held without bail.
Trump sparked a furious backlash on Monday when he posted on Truth Social that Reiner suffered from a ‘mind crippling disease known as Trump Derangement Syndrome.’ He also branded the beloved director as ‘very bad for our country.’
The controversy was the subject of debate between Greg Gutfeld, who attempted to defend the president, and Harold Ford Jr., who criticized Trump, on The Five yesterday evening.
‘I think the thing is, you don’t have to like the things that he says all the time. It is why, in my filter, Trump is always ‘words’ versus ‘deeds.’ I don’t have to like what he says. In fact, I can hate what he says. But I can also think in his brain, he is going, ‘This guy compared me to Hitler. He put a target on my back. I don’t like him,” Gutfeld argued.
‘If it were me, I would go, like, ‘I’m sorry he’s dead.’ But he can’t let that go. We don’t have to like it,’ continued the Fox host, shrugging. ‘I just look at the deeds. But I get why you’re upset.’
Ford Jr. pushed back, stating that conservatives need to acknowledge that Trump’s response to the gruesome murder was simply ‘wrong.’
‘If Joe Biden had said this about anybody, I would’ve attacked this and said he’s completely wrong,’ the Democratic ex-congressman said. ‘It’s wrong, and we should be able to call out what’s right from wrong, and that’s wrong what he did.’
Ford Jr. pushed back, stating that conservatives need to acknowledge that Trump’s response to the gruesome murder was simply ‘wrong’
‘I think the thing is, you don’t have to like the things that he says all the time. It is why, in my filter, Trump is always ‘words’ versus ‘deeds.’ I don’t have to like what he says. In fact, I can hate what he says. But I can also think in his brain, he is going, ‘This guy compared me to Hitler. He put a target on my back. I don’t like him,” Gutfeld argued.
Reiner, 78, and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, 70 (pictured together in 2023), were found stabbed to death in their Los Angeles home on Sunday
Hollywood celebrities and Republicans pushed back on Trump’s vicious statement, with some calling it ‘disgusting and vile.’
But the President seemed undeterred in his criticism of the late director.
When pressed by a reporter in the Oval Office about his previous statement, he said: ‘Well, I wasn’t a fan of his at all. He was a deranged person. As far as Trump was concerned.
‘I think he hurt himself, career-wise, he became like a deranged person, [with] 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.’
Trump also accused Reiner of pushing the ‘Russia hoax’, the allegation that the President was compromised by the Kremlin during his first term.
He wrote that Reiner, a ‘once very talented movie director and comedy star,’ passed away, ‘reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease’ he calls TDS – or Trump Derangement Syndrome.
The term is used by conservatives to describe disdain for the Republican President.
Reiner was the Emmy-winning star of the sitcom All in the Family who went on to direct films including When Harry Met Sally… and The Princess Bride. He was an outspoken liberal activist for decades.
An aerial view shows the couple’s home in Brentwood, LA, where they were found dead
Michele was a photographer, movie producer and advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. They had been married for 36 years.
Three months ago, Nick was photographed with his parents and siblings at the premiere of his father’s film Spinal Tap 2: The End Continues.
He had spoken publicly of his struggles with addiction, cycling in and out of treatment facilities with bouts of homelessness in between through his teen years.
The father and son explored – and seemed to improve – their relationship through the making of the 2016 film, Being Charlie.
Nick co-wrote and Reiner directed the film about the struggles of an addicted son and a famous father. It was not autobiographical but included several elements of their lives.
‘It forced us to understand ourselves better than we had,’ Reiner told the AP in 2016. ‘I told Nick while we were making it, I said, ‘You know it doesn’t matter, whatever happens to this thing, we won already’.’
