Greg Gutfeld may not agree with Donald Trump’s posthumous smear of liberal film director Rob Reiner, but that didn’t stop him from making excuses for the president.
On Monday’s episode of The Five, the Fox News host said that he cared more about Trump’s actions than his words regarding the death Sunday of Reiner, 78, and his 68-year-old wife, Michele, allegedly by their 32-year-old son, Nick.
While co-host Harold Ford Jr. urged Trump, 79, to amend his baseless social media post claiming Reiner’s death was due to “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Gutfeld couldn’t bring himself to do the same.
“I think the thing is, you don’t have to like the things that he says all the time. It is why, in my filter, Trump is always ‘words’ versus ‘deeds.’ I don’t have to like what he says. In fact, I can hate what he says. But I can also think in his brain, he is going, ‘This guy compared me to Hitler. He put a target on my back. I don’t like him,’” Gutfeld, 61, hypothesized.
“If it were me, I would go, like, ‘I’m sorry he’s dead.’ But he can’t let that go. We don’t have to like it,” continued the Fox host, shrugging a bit. “I just look at the deeds. But I get why you’re upset.”
Ford was more forceful.
“It’s wrong... I don’t disagree with you, but it’s wrong,” the Democratic former congressman said, prompting Gutfeld to concur: “Yeah.”
“We should be able to call out right and wrong with Trump,” Ford continued. “We talked about it on the show earlier today. That’s wrong, what he did.”
But when it came to Ford’s other colleagues on The Five, neither Jesse Watters, Dana Perino, nor Emily Compagno took the opportunity to condemn Trump’s words.
Some of the president’s supporters, though, did.
“I respect you so much but this was heartless and uncalled for,” one Truth Social user said, to no avail.
Not only is Trump’s post still up, but he later doubled down on the matter in the Oval Office.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
