Michelle Obama has revealed how she and her husband were due to meet Rob and Michele Reiner on the night of their murder.
The former first lady detailed the planned meet-up in an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live in which she paid an emotional tribute to the slain film director and his wife—and took a swipe at Donald Trump for his vile comments about their death.
“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 said on Monday night’s show.
Obama described the 78-year-old film director and his 68-year-old wife as “some of the most decent, courageous people you ever want to know.”
She directly took issue with the president’s taunt that Reiner, a fierce Trump critic, had suffered from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
“They’re 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,” she said.
“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. That is the truth. I do know them.”
News of the attack at the Reiners’ home in Brentwood broke on Sunday evening. Their 32-year-old son, Nick, was detained later that night, suspected of their murder.
Obama’s appearance on the Kimmel show came amid widespread shock at Trump’s bizarre comments about Reiner’s death, first expressed in a Truth Social post and later in a press conference.
“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,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. He later doubled down on these comments when speaking at the Oval Office, calling Reiner “deranged” and saying he “was not a fan of Rob Reiner at all in any way, shape, or form.”
“What they have always been are passionate people, in a time when there are not...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,” Obama said, “And they cared about their family and they cared about this country and they cared about fairness and equity. That is the truth. I do know them.”
Barack Obama released a statement about the Reiners, too, writing on X, “They will be remembered for the values they championed and the countless people they inspired.”
Kimmel addressed Trump’s comments about Rob on the show himself, saying, “When I first saw it, I thought it was fake.”
“My wife showed it to me this morning,” he explained. “I was like, ‘Well, even for him, that seemed like too much.’ But nothing is ever too much for him.” The late-night host displayed Trump’s post for his audience, reading his words aloud.
“Just when you think he can’t go any lower, he somehow finds a way to do that,” Kimmel concluded, calling Trump’s reaction “hateful and vile.”
Rob was an outspoken critic of Trump and his policies, frequently underscoring the president’s various threats to democracy.
