The investigation into the deaths of filmmaker Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, is in its early stages, though a variety of prominent American voices from the world of politics and culture have already expressed their public condolences.
For his part, Donald Trump published a relatively brief, 117-word statement to his social media platform that began, “A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood.”
And if the president had simply stopped there, that would have been wise. Alas, he kept going. From the online statement:
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, sometimes referred to as TDS. 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.
To know anything about the incumbent American president is to know that his moral compass is broken, to the extent that it ever existed in any meaningful way. I’ve long believed that a turning point in our understanding of Trump’s character came after a man violently attacked then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband in the Democrat’s Bay Area home. Paul Pelosi was almost killed in the assault, but as he lay in a hospital bed, Trump thought it would be a good idea to embrace a bonkers conspiracy theory about the attack, which preceded a series of jokes from the president about the violent crime.
It was a timely reminder that Trump is a man devoid of grace and decency.
The same realization came into sharper focus reading his disgusting reaction to the Reiners’ deaths. To be sure, the president could have said nothing — the same way he responded to the late Sen. John McCain’s passing with silent indifference.
But Trump’s worst instincts appeared to get the better of him. After learning about the death of one of the nation’s most celebrated and successful filmmakers, the president apparently decided the smart move would be to go on the attack against the victim, seizing the opportunity to peddle petty personal grievances — not because he had to, and not because the circumstances warranted it, but because Trump is who he appears to be. Just when it seems the Republican’s character couldn’t possibly appear any uglier or more callous, he finds a way to dig a hole in the bottom of the barrel, and falls even further. For his part, Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a frequent target of Trump’s ire, responded to the president’s anti-Reiner rant, “Regardless of how you felt about Rob Reiner, this is inappropriate and disrespectful discourse about a man who was just brutally murdered. I guess my elected GOP colleagues, the VP, and White House staff will just ignore it because they’re afraid? I challenge anyone to defend it.” So far, I’ve seen no prominent Republican voices respond to the congressman’s challenge.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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