President Donald Trump is taking the heat even from his own party over his distasteful Truth Social post about filmmaker Rob Reiner’s tragic death.
Republican Rep. Don Bacon slammed the president after he shared an unhinged post claiming that Reiner’s murder Sunday was the result of the “anger he caused others” with his “TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.”
“I’d expect to hear something like this from a drunk guy at a bar, not the President of the United States. Can the President be presidential?” the Nebraska congressman said to CNN’s Jake Tapper Monday.
In the unhinged post, Trump called Reiner “tortured and struggling.”
“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,” he wrote.
Trump Dergangement Syndrome is a term often used by Trump and his supporters to describe people who criticize Trump as being irrational in an attempt to discredit them. Republicans at the federal and state levels have attempted to legitimize the term through studies or a legal definition.
Bacon frequently breaks with Trump’s MAGA base and is one of the most outspoken GOP critics of the president’s policies and demeanor. He has been very critical of Trump’s friendly relationship with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Signal scandal. The Nebraska congressman announced earlier this year that he would not seek re-election to the House in the 2026 midterm election.
Reiner, 78, and his wife, Michele, 68, were found dead in their Los Angeles home Sunday in what police are calling “an apparent homicide.” Their son, Nick, is in custody as a suspect in the attack. He is being held on $4 million bail.
Other Republicans, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a former MAGA diehard who has been at odds with the president for weeks, also criticized the president’s post.
“This is a family tragedy, not about politics or political enemies. Many families deal with a family member with drug addiction and mental health issues. It’s incredibly difficult and should be met with empathy, especially when it ends in murder,” Greene wrote on social media.
House Republican Thomas Massie called Trump’s comments “inappropriate and disrespectful.”
“Regardless of how you felt about Rob Reiner, this is inappropriate and disrespectful discourse about a man who was just brutally murdered,” Massie wrote on X. “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.”
New York Republican Mike Lawler also criticized the post, calling the statement “wrong.”
“Regardless of one’s political views, no one should be subjected to violence, let alone at the hands of their own son. It’s a horrible tragedy that should engender sympathy and compassion from everyone in our country, period,” Lawler, who represents a swing district, said in a social media post.
The Daily Beast reached out to the White House for comment on the backlash.
The president’s comment offers a stark contrast to those left by Democratic lawmakers and some Republicans who have mourned Reiner and his wife’s passing. Former President Joe Biden said he and his wife Jill Biden “take solace in knowing their work will live on for generations to come.”
