What specific public remarks did Rob Reiner make about the shooting of Charlie Kirk in 2025?
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Executive summary
Rob Reiner publicly condemned the September 2025 shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk as “horror” and “an absolute horror,” saying the killing “should never happen to anybody,” that it was “beyond belief,” and that violence is “not a solution to solving problems,” remarks he made during an interview with Piers Morgan that were later verified and widely circulated after Reiner’s death [1] [2] [3]. Reiner also emphasized that political differences do not justify violence—“I don’t care what your political beliefs are, that’s not acceptable”—and praised Kirk’s wife, Erika Kirk, for publicly extending forgiveness to the shooter [1] [4] [5].
1. The context: where and when Reiner spoke
The specific remarks surfaced from a Piers Morgan Uncensored interview Reiner gave in late September 2025 in the immediate aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s killing; the interview clip has been authenticated by fact-checkers and published outlets and was widely reposted after Reiner’s own death in December 2025 [3] [5] [1].
2. The core wording reported verbatim
When asked for his “gut reaction,” Reiner replied with short, emphatic phrases: “Horror. An absolute horror,” and in fuller comments said the event was “beyond belief” and “that should never happen to anybody,” language reported verbatim in multiple outlets [1] [6] [2].
3. The moral point Reiner made about political violence
Reiner framed the shooting as a human tragedy that transcended partisan divides, saying explicitly, “I don’t care what your political beliefs are, that’s not acceptable. That’s not a solution to solving problems,” a line repeated across news reports and fact-checks as central to his response [1] [4] [3].
4. Reiner’s remarks on forgiveness and Erika Kirk
Beyond condemning the shooting, Reiner commended Erika Kirk for her public forgiveness of the alleged shooter, telling the interviewer that her response was the “right” or admirable reaction in the face of such violence—an element many outlets highlighted when re-circulating the clip [4] [5] [7].
5. How those quotes were used after Reiner’s death
After Reiner and his wife were killed in December 2025, that Piers Morgan exchange was widely reposted both to memorialize Reiner and to contrast his empathetic stance with criticism of President Trump’s mocking commentary about Reiner’s death; outlets from Entertainment Weekly to Axios and the Los Angeles Times noted the juxtaposition [1] [8] [2].
6. Verification and limits of the record
Fact-checkers and mainstream outlets treated the Piers Morgan clip as authentic and quoted the exchange directly; Snopes documents the original exchange (including timestamps) and reports the video is authentic [3]. Reporting consistently attributes the lines above to that interview, but the available sources do not contain a full verbatim transcript beyond the short quoted passages, so assertions here are limited to the published quotes and paraphrases in those reports [3] [1].
7. Alternative readings and the political afterlife of the remarks
While most coverage framed Reiner’s statements as a forceful, nonpartisan condemnation of political violence, conservative commentators and some social-media users recontextualized the resurfaced clip as part of a broader political fight over who did or did not condemn Kirk’s killing; critics pointed to the clip to contrast Reiner’s response with others’ reactions and to challenge perceived hypocrisy in national political rhetoric [8] [9].