President Donald Trump confronted blowback from fellow Republicans Monday after he baselessly recommended that legendary director and actor Rob Reiner died due to Reiner’s anti-Trump views, injecting politics into the killing at a time when different conservatives expressed condolences.
Reiner, Trump wrote on Fact Social, was killed “due the anger he triggered others by way of his huge, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a thoughts crippling illness recognized and typically known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, typically known as TDS.”
Trump’s feedback usually are not supported by at the moment out there public data from authorities. He prefaced his allegations by saying the killings had been “a really unhappy factor.”
Reiner and his spouse, Michele Singer Reiner, had been discovered lifeless of their Los Angeles house Sunday afternoon apparently from stab wounds, in keeping with an individual near the household. Nick Reiner, the couple’s son, has been arrested in reference to their deaths, in keeping with two regulation enforcement sources with direct information of the investigation. Nick Reiner has spoken publicly about his struggles with habit and homelessness.
The White Home didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon what data the president might need a couple of motive for the killings.
A number of Republican lawmakers chastised Trump for emphasizing Reiner’s political beliefs reasonably than the horrific nature of his demise.
“This assertion is incorrect,” Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., who sits in one of the crucial aggressive congressional districts within the nation, wrote on X. “No matter one’s political beliefs, nobody needs to be subjected to violence, not to mention by the hands of their very own son. It’s a horrible tragedy that ought to engender sympathy and compassion from everybody in our nation, interval.”Republicans who criticize Trump have lengthy risked alienating MAGA voters, whose help can be vital to susceptible incumbents in subsequent 12 months’s midterm elections. Lawler’s choice to push again on the president might counsel that he believes he’s on protected floor — even with hard-core Trump voters — in expressing a opposite view on Reiner.
Two different Home Republicans, each of whom have clashed with Trump in latest months, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Thomas Massie of Kentucky, blasted him on X Monday.
“No matter the way you felt about Rob Reiner, that is inappropriate and disrespectful discourse a couple of man who was simply brutally murdered,” Massie wrote. “I assume my elected GOP colleagues, the VP, and White Home employees will simply ignore it as a result of they’re afraid? I problem anybody to defend it.”
Reiner was a Trump critic and a serious donor to Democratic candidates and causes, together with giving greater than $150,000 to the Democratic presidential candidates’ “victory fund” throughout the 2024 election cycle. He was additionally a outstanding determine who voiced his view, within the wake of conservative Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September, that violence will not be a solution to political disagreement.
“I don’t care what your political views are: That’s not acceptable,” Reiner informed interviewer Piers Morgan, expressing his “absolute horror” at Kirk’s capturing. Andrew Kolvet, the spokesman for Kirk’s group, Turning Level USA, posted the Morgan-Reiner interview on Sunday evening, earlier than Trump’s social media submit. Kolvet praised Reiner for responding “with grace and compassion to Charlie’s assassination.”
Morgan known as on Trump to delete his submit about Reiner, posting on X, “That is a dreadful factor to say” and made reference to his son’s arrest.
Trump additionally confronted rapid backlash on-line, together with from conservative activists like Robby Starbuck, a filmmaker and main advocate towards company and authorities range, fairness and inclusion insurance policies.
“What occurred final evening to Rob Reiner and his spouse was a savage butchering of two human lives,” Starbuck wrote in response to Trump. “I don’t care what their politics had been or how they felt about Trump, no regulation abiding human deserves this. We should always pray for + ship condolences to his family members and NOT make it political.”
Raheem Kassam, editor of the conservative publication The Nationwide Pulse, posted on X over a picture of Trump’s assertion.
“Don’t love this, to be sincere,” Kassam wrote.
Jenna Ellis, a former Trump marketing campaign lawyer, informed NBC Information that she is “grateful to see different Trump supporters and outstanding conservative voices likewise encourage the president to rethink and delete this remark.”
In her personal X submit, she known as Trump’s message “NOT the suitable response” to the killings.
“The Proper uniformly condemned political and celebratory responses to Charlie Kirk’s demise,” Ellis wrote. “This can be a horrible instance from Trump (and stunning contemplating the 2 makes an attempt on his personal life) and needs to be condemned by everybody with any decency.”
Trump’s take stood in stark distinction to the reactions of many MAGA figures, together with those that had been vocal following Kirk’s demise. Some on the time accused the political left of insensitivity as a result of sure progressives pointed to Kirk’s beliefs to clarify anger towards him. On Sunday evening and early Monday morning, they largely expressed sympathy for Reiner.
“RIP, Rob Reiner,” Alex Bruesewitz, a high Trump ally and social media influencer, posted on X together with an emoji of praying palms.
Later Monday, he stated he takes no subject with Trump’s submit and doesn’t imagine it dilutes the softer tone different MAGA figures struck.
“I don’t suppose it undermines us,” Bruesewitz stated. “It’s okay for individuals to have totally different reactions. Rob Reiner was actually nasty in direction of the President. He stated many hateful issues like he was a image of hate, he known as him mentally unwell, and recommended he needs to be arrested for treason, against the law punishable by demise. I don’t blame the president for having the response that he had.”
Jack Posobiec, a conservative commentator who’s near the Trump administration, framed Trump’s submit as an admonition reasonably than a celebration of Reiner’s killing. “The place is the celebration in Trump’s submit? He isn’t celebrating, he’s warning,” Posobiec wrote.
Nonetheless, many luminaries of the conservative motion not solely sounded a special observe than Trump however portrayed their place because the consensus on the political proper.
“Discover that the American proper is NOT celebrating Rob Reiner’s homicide,” @BretWeinsten wrote to his 1.1 million X followers early Monday morning, earlier than Trump’s submit. “I see submit after submit honoring his outstanding contribution to our tradition regardless of his strident embrace of progressive lunacy in his later years. That is America displaying our frequent humanity. Could his reminiscence, and his outstanding physique of labor, be a blessing to us all.”
