President Donald Trump is once again refusing to bend the knee to the outrage mob, standing firm behind his blunt Truth Social post following the shocking deaths of Hollywood director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele. Despite predictable media hysteria and hand-wringing from establishment Republicans and the usual left-wing talking heads, Trump made it clear this week that he has no intention of walking back his remarks about a man who spent years publicly attacking him and the MAGA movement.
As details emerged that Reiner and his wife were allegedly stabbed to death by their troubled adult son during what authorities believe was a domestic dispute, Hollywood elites rushed to canonize the far-left director. President Trump, however, declined to play along. Instead, he spoke plainly about Reiner’s long, obsessive history of anti-Trump activism and what the president has repeatedly labeled “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
Reiner, a once-talented filmmaker turned full-time political agitator, had made a second career out of attacking Trump and conservatives—often in the harshest, most personal terms. He routinely mocked Republicans, smeared Trump with now-debunked conspiracy theories like the Russia collusion hoax, and showed little restraint when discussing those he despised. That context, Trump supporters argue, matters.
In his Truth Social post that ignited the firestorm, President Trump wrote that Reiner had passed away “due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.” He went on to describe Reiner as a man consumed by obsession as Trump’s administration delivered what the president called a “Golden Age of America.”
Predictably, the media and left-wing celebrities reacted with outrage, accusing Trump of insensitivity. “The View” devolved into another on-air meltdown, with Whoopi Goldberg and her co-hosts clutching pearls and demanding apologies. But Trump, true to form, didn’t flinch.
When pressed by a reporter during a White House press conference on December 15 and asked whether he stood by the post, Trump responded without hesitation.
“Well, I wasn’t a fan of his at all,” the president said. “He was a deranged person, as far as Trump is concerned.”
Trump then reminded reporters that Reiner was one of the loudest voices pushing the Russia hoax—a narrative that consumed years of Trump’s first term and was later exposed as politically motivated fiction. According to the president, Reiner wasn’t merely mistaken; he knew better.
“He said things he likely knew were false,” Trump said, referencing Reiner’s repeated claims that Trump was controlled by Russia. “He was one of the people behind it.”
The president went even further, arguing that Reiner’s obsession with Trump ultimately destroyed his own credibility and career.
“I think he hurt himself career-wise,” Trump said. “He became like a deranged person—Trump Derangement Syndrome. I thought he was very bad for our country.”
To Trump’s supporters, the episode is less about decorum and more about honesty. They argue that for years conservatives were expected to stay silent while figures like Reiner mocked, smeared, and celebrated the suffering of their political opponents. Now that Trump refuses to play by those rules, the same people demand civility.
Whether critics like it or not, President Trump has once again made his position clear: he won’t rewrite history, and he won’t pretend that vicious political obsession didn’t define Rob Reiner’s final years. And as usual, Trump isn’t backing down—no matter how loud the outrage gets.
