What exact comment did Rob Reiner make about Trump being shot at and when did he say it?

1. Trump’s exact wording and where it appeared

In a Truth Social post published the morning after Rob and Michele Reiner were found dead, Trump wrote: “A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. 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,” and added that Reiner “was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump…” ^{[1] [5]}.

2. When he repeated and expanded the comments

Later the same day at the White House, when asked about backlash, Trump said on camera, “I wasn’t a fan of his at all. He was a deranged person,” and told reporters that Reiner “was very bad for our country,” again asserting Reiner’s alleged “obsession” and paranoia ^{[2] [3]}.

3. How major outlets reported the timeline and phrasing

Multiple outlets — including The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNBC, Axios, Politico and Rolling Stone — quoted the Truth Social post and Trump’s follow-up remarks, noting the post was made the morning after the deaths were reported and that he later doubled down during a White House exchange with reporters ^{[2] [6] [4] [7] [8] [9]}.

4. Immediate reactions and political context

Republicans across the spectrum rebuked the president’s framing as inappropriate given the ongoing homicide investigation; Rep. Thomas Massie called the post “inappropriate and disrespectful discourse about a man who was just brutally murdered,” while some MAGA-aligned voices defended or downplayed the comments ^{[5] [7]}. Outlets reported that the Reiners’ son was arrested and police were investigating the deaths as homicides, with no public evidence linking the killings to Reiner’s politics at the time of Trump’s post ^{[2] [6]}.

5. What sources say — and what they do not

Reporting uniformly reproduces Trump’s Truth Social wording and his on-the-record White House comments, and documents the same timeline: post on Truth Social Monday morning, follow-up remarks later that day ^{[1] [2]}. Available sources do not mention any law-enforcement finding that Reiner’s politics caused the killings; outlets describe Trump’s claim as unsubstantiated and note investigators had not tied motive to politics ^{[2] [6]}.

6. Competing narratives and implicit agendas

Newsrooms framed the post as politicizing a family tragedy; critics saw an attempt to turn the deaths into a vindication of Trump’s “TDS” rhetoric, while some pro-Trump commentators treated it as customary pushback against a longtime critic ^{[9] [7]}. Coverage highlights an implicit partisan agenda: Trump’s remarks reframed a homicide as an outcome of political animus, which shifts focus from an active criminal probe to partisan point-scoring ^{[8] [10]}.

7. Why the exact phrasing matters

Journalists and lawmakers stressed the specific phrasing — suggesting the deaths were “reportedly due to the anger he caused others” — because it imputes causation without evidence and can influence public perceptions while an investigation continues ^{[1] [5]}. Multiple outlets explicitly called the claim “baseless” or “unsubstantiated,” quoting both the Truth Social post and Trump’s later insistence he “was not a fan” ^{[2] [4]}.

Limitations: this analysis is drawn solely from the supplied reporting; it does not include primary Truth Social post screenshots or the full transcript of Trump’s exchange with reporters beyond what the cited outlets published. All factual assertions above are taken from the cited pieces ^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]}.