Editor’s Note: This story has been updated for clarity.
President Donald Trump wasted little time on Monday attacking the beloved director and activist Rob Reiner, claiming that his death and that of his wife — with their own son being questioned by police — was the result of “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” the president’s name for people who are strongly opposed to him and his policies.
Describing their deaths, which are being investigated as apparent homicide, as a “very sad thing,” Trump then called Reiner “a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star.”
He wrote on Truth Social that the death of Reiner and his wife was “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS.”
Reiner, the president alleged, “was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!”
Critics immediately responded.
“Trump tried to punish people who criticized [Charlie] Kirk after he was killed. Now he’s doing this. What a sick deranged piece of trash human being,” declared Daily Kos reporter Emily C. Singer.
“What a sick man to use the death of a mother and father at the hands of their child as an opportunity for gleefully trying to score political points,” wrote attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council.
“You want to ignore it. He wants the attention. But you can’t ignore it. Because it’s not just about him. It’s about a world where decency still matters. And this is about as indecent as it gets,” observed former Obama administration official Patrick Granfield.
“Rob has a legacy to be proud of. You are a stain on civilization, few will miss,” wrote Alexander Vindman, former Director of European Affairs for the U.S. National Security Council (NSC).
“Just sort of wonder what has to go through your head to decide to send this. Obviously no one around the president is there or willing to tell him he sounds psychotic and monstrous posting this,” remarked The Bulwark’s Sam Stein.
