Donald Trump Says Rob Reiner and His Wife Were Killed Because the Director Was Obsessed With Him
Director Rob Reiner was an outspoken liberal.
Published Dec. 15 2025, 12:06 p.m. ET
Director Rob Reiner, who was killed alongside his wife Michele Reiner in December 2025, was more than a filmmaker. The Hollywood legend and proud nepo baby was also a political activist. In 1998, he lobbied for the passing of the California Children and Families Act, which oversaw the funding of early childhood programs funded by a tax on tobacco products.
Rob's staunch anti-tobacco stance also led him to the Directors Guild of America's Social Responsibility Task Force, which aimed to deal with social issues through the media. For example, they tackled the depiction of smoking on film and in television. On a larger scale, Rob often posted about politics on social media. His political views were kind of hard to miss. Here's what we know.
Rob Reiner's political views were as liberal as it gets.
According to The Guardian, Rob's political views were homegrown. The FBI once asked his father, actor/director Carl Reiner, whether he knew any Communists. This was during the blacklist era of Hollywood in the 1950s. Carl looked at the agents and said, "I probably do, but if I did, I wouldn’t tell you."
Rob's mother was also an activist. Actor and singer Estelle Reiner, who died in 2008, helped organize the anti-Vietnam War group Another Mother for Peace. "You know how people talk about remembering where they were when Kennedy died?" asked Rob. "Well, I remember where I was when [civil rights activist] Medgar Evers died [in June 1963], because my parents were very active in the civil rights movement." This led to his 1996 film about the trial of Evers's killer: Ghosts of Mississippi.
Rob often threw his Hollywood power behind politicians. He campaigned for Al Gore in 2000 and Howard Dean in 2004, endorsed Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, as well as Hillary Clinton in 2016, and supported Joe Biden in 2020. Things took a turn when Biden revealed he was running again in 2024. In July 2024, Reiner demanded Biden step down in a post to X. (formerly Twitter), per The Hollywood Reporter.
Rob Reiner did not like Trump.
Before Donald Trump was elected a second time, Rob told The Guardian he believed the president wanted to bring about the end of democracy. He referenced Trump's numerous threats against his perceived political enemies, and said autocracies were on the rise.
In response to Rob's and his wife's brutal murders, Trump took to Truth Social, where he said the director was "tortured and struggling." Trump then suggested Rob and his wife were killed "due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME."
The president went on to say that Rob drove people crazy because of this obsession. Trump alleged that Rob was paranoid, which reached new heights following the Trump administration surpassing "all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before." The bizarre post to Truth Social ended with Trump writing, "May Rob and Michele rest in peace!"