In death, Rob Reiner, an accomplished actor and filmmaker and a passionate progressive advocate, landed one last blow on Donald Trump and showed us how small and indecent a man the president is.
Reiner was a star on many fronts. He was a comedy pioneer, writing with Steve Martin for the Smothers Brothers in the 1960s. He played a pivotal role in one of the most revolutionary television shows in the medium, All in the Family. He was one of the most successful directors in the history of Hollywood (This Is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride, Stand By Me, When Harry Met Sally, A Few Good Men, and many more). His acting career ranged from sitcoms (That Girl) to serious films (The Wolf of Wall Street), with a wonderful recent stint on The Bear. His production company gave us The Shawshank Redemption and Seinfeld.
And Reiner was much more than your average LA liberal. He did the heavy lifting of leading campaigns—one overturned a ban on same-sex marriage in California, another created a program of early childhood development services in the state funded by a tax on tobacco products.
Above all, Rob was a mensch. We were friends. He was a big shot who did not act like a big shot. The son of Carl Reiner, he was a prince in Jewish comedy royalty. Yet online—and he was much online—he acted as if he were just another netizen concerned with the world. I’ll forever treasure our long and leisurely lunches at his favorite Italian restaurant where the conversation easily shifted from great comic bits to US history to California politics to tales of his father and his father’s pals (Mel Brooks, Norman Lear, Sid Caesar) to music and, inevitably in the past 10 years, to Donald Trump.
It was no secret that Rob despised Trump. He enthusiastically shared his unadulterated views regarding Trump on Twitter and Bluesky and during numerous cable television appearances. He considered Trump a serious threat to the nation, and he acted on that belief. In 2017, he established a nonprofit to investigate Vladimir Putin’s attack on the 2016 election, which helped Trump win the White House, and the contacts between Trump’s circle and Russia.
Here’s how Rob got one last poke at Trump.
On Sunday, Rob and his wife, Michele, a photographer he met while shooting When Harry Met Sally, were killed in their Los Angeles home. Within hours, the police arrested their son Nick, who has had serious addiction troubles, and charged him with the murders. This brutal crime was yet another shocking tragedy, coming the same weekend as the shooting at Brown University that left two students dead and the terrorist attack in Australia in which at least 15 Jewish Australians were slain.
Trump responded with a level of despicableness that pegged the needle—even on a Trump-adjusted scale. He is a lout who has mocked a reporter with a physical disability, who has denigrated John McCain for having been captured by North Vietnamese forces, who has boasted about sexually assaulting women, and who has uttered numerous racist and misogynistic remarks. But he may have topped himself this time.
Following the news of the murder of Rob and Michele, on his flailing social media platform, Trump issued an ugly rant. He derided Rob and attributed his death “to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.” He said Rob had “driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump.”
It was hard to follow Trump’s reasoning. Was he suggesting someone had killed Rob because of his opposition to Trump? Was he saying that Rob’s criticism of Trump had triggered psychosis in his murderer? Was he implying that Rob got what he deserved? All that was clear was that Trump was demonstrating yet again that not an iota of grace or decency exists within his dark soul.
Immediately, Trump was met with a backlash from the right. GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie—who have each tussled recently with Trump—lambasted him for his crass remarks. Right-wing podcaster Alex Stone called on Trump to delete his post. Conservative activist Robby Starbuck tweeted, “I don’t care what their politics were or how they felt about Trump, no law abiding human deserves this. We should pray for + send condolences to his loved ones and NOT make it political.” Commenters on Trump’s social media platform who claimed to be Trump supporters expressed dismay with their leader.
Trump, though, was unrepentant (of course). Asked by a reporter about his post, he offered an encore of his disgusting performance: “I wasn’t a fan of his at all. He was a deranged person as far as Trump is concerned….He was very bad for our country.”
Though gone, Rob managed to contribute to this public shaming of Trump. Social media users found a clip of Rob discussing with Piers Morgan the shooting of Charlie Kirk. Rob called it an “absolute horror,” decried this act of political violence, and praised his widow Erika’s remarks at the memorial service that was held for Kirk. There was no bitterness. He put politics aside. He displayed the empathy and decency one expects from a normal person.
This clip, by comparison, highlighted Trump’s callousness and vileness. It cast a spotlight on Trump’s narcissistic pettiness and his profound lack of character.
Trump’s foul and hate-driven conduct is nothing new. But his post about Rob suggests that he might be losing the ability to restrain himself. At a time when his approval ratings are plummeting—and Republicans are paying a price at the polls for this—Trump appears to have no desire (or ability?) to improve his standing by addressing or appealing to Americans who are not part of his cultish base. This post was red meat for Trump supporters who buy all his bunk—who believe Trump is a heroic saint saving America from the clutches of an evil cabal of Democrats, radicals, antifa, commies, media outlets, progressives, and Hollywood elites and who relish his endeavors to own the libs. That is not a majority of Americans.
It’s not an opportune time for Trump to be offending or alienating anyone. It does not take a brilliant mind to know that dumping on a popular filmmaker and actor who has been tragically killed by his own son is not going to help a politician in a freefall. Is this another sign of Trump’s unraveling?
For decades, Rob sought to entertain and enlighten us with his television and film work and to improve the world with his activism. He fervently battled Trumpism, and with his death the resistance loses a smart and fierce voice. This loss is incalculable. But my hunch is that Rob would have gotten a kick out of causing Trump to show his worst.
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There is so much for which to remember Rob. In my family, we have long treasured this one bit he did with Carroll O’Connor on All in the Family. It has always made me laugh, no matter how many times I’ve watched it. And we all could use a good laugh these days:
