Did Rob Reiner publicly comment on the Butler, PA shooting and what exactly did he say?
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Executive summary
Rob Reiner did not publicly say he “wished the Butler, Pennsylvania, would‑be assassin hadn’t missed” or that it was “too bad he turned his head,” despite viral social posts asserting those quotations; multiple fact‑checks found no contemporaneous interview, social‑media post, or media report attributing such comments to Reiner and a source close to his family called the claim “nonsense” [1] [2]. Major fact‑checking outlets (Lead Stories and Snopes) and news searches turned up no evidence of the quotes and documented that Reiner had, in other contexts, publicly condemned political violence [1] [3] [4].
1. The claim and its circulation: what people were saying
After the Butler, PA attempt on then‑presidential candidate Donald Trump, social posts began circulating that attributed celebratory or approving remarks about the shooter to Rob Reiner—most commonly that he “wished the assassin hadn’t missed” or said “too bad he turned his head”—and those posts reappeared in December 2025 amid renewed attention following Reiner’s death [1] [4].
2. What independent checks found: no verifiable source for the quotations
Lead Stories and Snopes investigated the circulating quotes and concluded that there is no verifiable evidence Reiner ever said those words; both organizations reported exhaustive searches of news archives, video and social‑media archives, and could not find any interview or post in which Reiner expressed approval of the assassination attempt [1] [3] [4]. Lead Stories specifically said a source close to the family called the claim “nonsense,” and Snopes reported similar negative results from searching archived social accounts and media coverage [2] [3].
3. Context: Reiner’s public stance on political violence and why the claim would have been notable
Fact‑checkers noted that Reiner was an outspoken critic of Trump and frequently spoke publicly about politics, which is why any remark endorsing violence would likely have been picked up by mainstream media at the time; Snopes observed that because Reiner regularly spoke about Trump, a comment endorsing an assassination would almost certainly have generated press coverage, yet none exists [3] [4]. In fact, the available reporting records that Reiner had previously condemned politically motivated violence in other instances [3] [4].
4. The alternate narrative: why the rumor spread and who amplified it
The unfounded quotations circulated widely on partisan social platforms and were amplified by commentators and websites that framed Reiner as a provocateur whose rhetoric, they argued, could incite violence—an argument used by some conservative commentators and outlets to deflect criticism of inflammatory rhetoric from the right [5] [6]. President Trump himself invoked Reiner’s political hostility after Reiner’s murder, and conservative critics pointed to alleged past comments to justify that framing even though the specific assassination‑praising quotes lack evidence [7] [8].
5. Limits of the reporting and final judgment
The publicly available investigations cited here relied on archived social posts, media databases and interviews with a family‑linked source; they found no corroboration that Reiner ever said the quoted lines and labeled the attributions unfounded [1] [3]. Reporters and fact‑checkers cannot prove a negative beyond the available records, but given Reiner’s high profile and the contemporaneous media ecosystem, the absence of any corroborating reportage or archived posts makes the claim highly implausible and unsupported by evidence [3] [4].