By Jeff Mason
WASHINGTON, Dec 15 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Monday mocked Rob Reiner, the slain actor and movie director who was also a vocal Democratic activist, suggesting he was killed for his anti-Trump views despite police not outlining a motive for the apparent homicide.
Reiner, 78, and his wife Michele, 68, were found dead in their home on Sunday. Their son Nick Reiner was arrested on homicide charges.
In a social media post, Trump referred to Rob Reiner as “tortured and struggling” and said he and his wife had passed away “reportedly due to the anger he caused” by opposing the Republican president.
“He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump,” the president wrote on Truth Social.
The president, who frequently lashes out at his opponents and praises public figures who support him, provided no evidence that Reiner’s political views contributed in any way to the couple’s death.
Reiner told Variety in 2017 that Trump was “mentally unfit” and called him “the single most unqualified human being to ever assume the presidency of the United States.”
Trump’s post, in which he said Reiner had the “mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME,” drew Republican criticism online.
“Regardless of how you felt about Rob Reiner, this is inappropriate and disrespectful discourse about a man who was just brutally murdered,” wrote U.S. Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky.
“This is a family tragedy, not about politics or political enemies,” wrote U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
Both Massie and Taylor Greene are Trump critics, a rarity within the president’s party.
The White House reposted Trump’s Truth Social comments on its official “Rapid Response” account on X.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Daniel Wallis)
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