Former First Lady Michelle Obama was supposed to see her friends Rob and Michele Reiner on Sunday night, ultimately learning of their brutal murders when the news broke earlier that day.
In their honor, the “Look” author used a portion of her Monday night appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” to denounce President Donald Trump for blaming the director’s death on his so-called Trump Derangement Syndrome — intentionally without mentioning him by name.
“We’ve known them for many, many years and we were supposed to be seeing them that night — last night — and we got the news,” Obama told Jimmy Kimmel on ABC. “Let me just say this, unlike some people, Rob and Michele Reiner are some of the most decent, courageous people you ever want to know. They are not deranged or crazed.”
“What they have always been are passionate people in a time when there’s not a lot of courage going on. They were the kind of people who were ready to put their actions behind what they cared about — and they cared about their family and they cared about this country and they cared about fairness and equity,” she continued. “And that is the truth, I do know them.”
Indeed, President Trump reacted to the Reiners’ killings with a post on Truth Social that has been condemned by many regardless of political affiliation.
“Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, 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,” Trump wrote on Monday. “He 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!”
The president then doubled down on his sentiments while speaking to reporters at a White House event, calling Reiner a “deranged” person who pushed the “Russia hoax.”
“I think he hurt himself career-wise,” he said. “He became, like, a deranged person, Trump Derangement Syndrome. So I was not a fan of Rob Reiner at all in any way, shape or form. I thought he was very bad for our country.”
Rob and Michele Reiner were found dead in their Brentwood home on Sunday afternoon. Their son, Nick, has since been arrested and booked for double homicide.
