'Nightmarish': Director Rob Reiner blasts Trump for what he’s 'destroyed in less than a year'

Rob Reiner in 2016 (Creative Commons)

Legendary director Rob Reiner may be promoting his latest spoof comedy Spinal Tap 2: The End Continues, but when it comes to the state of democracy and America under President Donald Trump, he's not spoofing anything.

And though the sequel to his first directoral debut This Is Spinal Tap isn't the least bit political, save for a single Stormy Daniels reference, Reiner, 78, tells The Daily Beast that what's going on in politics today is a sequel nobody wants to see.

"My wife, her mother was in Auschwitz and she lost her entire family there, she was the only survivor, my Uncle Charlie was part of D-Day and fought in 11 major battles," he says. "My second father is Norman Lear — another big figure in my life — he flew 52 bombing missions over Nazi Germany, and millions and millions of people died so that we wouldn’t have what we see happening now in America. And that is a very disturbing thing. And make no mistake, this is where we are right now, and we have to become aware of it."

And though the former "All In the Family" star who played a raging liberal to what today would likely be his MAGA father-in-law, isn't on the frontlines of the resistence, per se, he says he does what he can.

"I’m trying to push back as best I can in ways that I know how, and hopefully we can preserve democracy because it’s a 250 year experiment that has, in fits and starts, improved itself," he says.

Contrary to internet gossip, Reiner, who was very vocal on the app formerly known as Twitter during Trump's first term, says he did not delete it after Trump won the election.

"It wasn’t that, it was when Elon Musk bought Twitter, turned it into X and it became a platform for this kind of authoritarian point of view," he says.

More importantly, he worries that the progress America has made has been shortlived.

"There was a time where Black people couldn’t vote, now they can. We had a Black president," he says. "We’ve been flawed — incredibly flawed — but we’ve moved forward. This is the first time I’m seeing this thing that is so difficult to hold onto, that is so ephemeral, being destroyed in less than a year."

While he doesn't necessarily see a happy ending just yet, Reiner still has hope, he says, but to fix what's been broken will be a major production.

"I’m hoping we’ll survive this. And if we do, it’s going to take a long time to rebuild the shining city on the hill, the beacon to the rest of the world. This used to be the place that welcomed immigrants. Diversity was our strength. And now people are being thrown out of the country without due process. It’s nightmarish what’s happening in America. And hopefully people will be able to see that," he says.

"It’s as bad as anything could be in this country at this point. The hope was, if we could have one country that allows people from all ethnicities, colors, religions, sexual preferences, all living in one place, it would prove that the world can be one. This was the experiment. This was the place we were going to do it. And right now, it isn’t happening."