President Donald Trump‘s recent post insulting Rob Reiner less than a day after the director and his wife were murdered in their home has caused backlash across party lines — and Jack White is just one of many Americans expressing their outrage.
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In a post on Instagram on Monday (Dec. 15), the White Stripes guitarist shared a screenshot of the twice-impeached president’s Truth Social post about Reiner and wrote, “Trump you disgusting, vile, egomaniac loser, child.”
“Neither he nor any one of his followers can defend this vile, horrible insult to a beautiful artist who gave the world so much,” White continued. “To use someone’s tragic death to promote your own vanity and fascist authoritarian agenda is a corrupt and narcissistic sin. Shame on you trump and anyone who defends this.”
Reiner and his wife, producer Michele Singer Reiner, were found dead with stab wounds in their Los Angeles home on Sunday (Dec. 14). According to the Associated Press, the couple’s 32-year-old son Nick has been arrested. An official with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said he was arrested on homicide charges, Reuters reported.
While there has been an outpouring of grief for the When Harry Met Sally filmmaker from friends and fans alike online, one person took Reiner’s death as an opportunity to insult him. “A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood,” Trump wrote on Monday (Dec. 15). “Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away … 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.”
“He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump,” the politician continued. “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.”
Though Trump is known for his incendiary posts, his comments about Reiner appear to have crossed a line for his fellow Republicans. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene disavowed the president’s words, writing on X, “This is a family tragedy, not about politics or political enemies,” while Rep. Thomas Massie posted, “This is inappropriate and disrespectful discourse about a man who was just brutally murdered … I challenge anyone to defend it.”
White has long stood opposed to the Trump administration, from slamming the billionaire’s unauthorized use of White Stripes music to calling him a “wannabe dictator” after the politician won the 2024 presidential election. In August, the musician dissed the White House’s “vulgar, gold leafed and gaudy” new decor under Trump’s second term, leading communications director Steven Cheung to call White a “washed up, has-been loser posting drivel on social media because he clearly has ample time on his hands due to his stalled career.”
