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Given Rob Reiner’s contributions to American culture—from his days as a sitcom star on All in the Family to his direction of iconic films such as When Harry Met Sally and A Few Good Men—it was entirely appropriate for the president of the United States to weigh in on his horrifying death over the weekend.
Sadly, the way President Donald Trump has done so is beyond the pale. His Monday post on Truth Social is worth reading in full, in part because many Republican lawmakers will spend the next few days claiming not to have seen it.
This is what we know. Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, were found stabbed to death on Sunday. Their troubled son, 32-year-old Nick Reiner, has been arrested for their murder. There is no evidence that the slaying had anything to do with Trump. But the president has a penchant for making everything about himself, and so he has here, casting their deaths as somehow the result of their opposition to him and his politics.
We’re living through an era of political violence, something we take very seriously. We’ve published numerous essays on how Americans can and must come together and solve our differences the way they are meant to be solved: civil debate, the democratic process, a respectful airing of differences. Those values are at the heart of everything we do.
In his 50-plus years as a top American entertainer, Reiner—like most major Hollywood figures—was a liberal. And like a solid percentage of the country, he did not care for Trump. But there is no indication this was an act of political violence, and it is obscene for the president to try to make it into one.
Many Americans have come to expect the president to be petulant and self-centered. We’ve become inured to his wild social media ramblings. Yet he still finds ways to shock us on occasion; his statement on Reiner is exceptionally beneath the office he holds. Rob Reiner was not a political figure. He was merely an outspoken supporter of liberal causes, which of course was his right.
After a horrific weekend that included a lethal shooting at Brown University, the killing of three Americans by ISIS in Syria, and the slaughter of 16 people celebrating Hanukkah on a beach in Australia, the leader of the free world should be looking to unite Americans and condemn bigotry and violence wherever they take place in the world. Instead, he is kicking the corpse of someone who made movies that brought Americans together.
After this awful weekend, Trump has once again lowered the bar for what we can expect from the president.
Much has been written about how social media brings out the worst in people. We saw this after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, which was celebrated by many accounts on Bluesky, a left-wing alternative to X. But the overwhelming majority of Democratic lawmakers hit the right note, condemning Kirk’s murder and calling for peace.
Now, after this awful weekend, Trump has once again lowered the bar for what we can expect from the president. His accomplishments are real, particularly in the realm of foreign policy and in securing the southern border. But there’s a casual, unthinking cruelty that sometimes runs through him. Today, that dark side of his personality was on full display.
As mentioned earlier, Reiner’s breakout role was on All in the Family, the iconic 1970s sitcom where he played the liberal foil to his father-in-law, Archie Bunker. The show and its creators skewed left, but Archie always got to make his case, and became something of a conservative icon in the process. In the end, the point of the show was that they were all family, and they did all love each other, no matter the political differences they had. Their disagreements became heated and Archie let the insults fly—“Meathead,” he called his son-in-law when they argued politics. Still, the show recognized and respected their basic decency as Americans, and as human beings.
It’s a sentiment we could use more of today, one in keeping with our country’s floundering civic religion and sense of boundaries. Instead, we’re treated to the shameful spectacle of the president of the United States mocking a man who had just been savagely murdered alongside his wife.
Trump almost certainly won’t walk it back, and the usual suspects will find some rhetorical contortions with which to defend this outburst. But there is no point in anyone defending this. It should be widely opposed—particularly by those who otherwise support him.
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