(The Hill) — Former first lady Michelle Obama said she was supposed to see acclaimed actor-director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, just hours after they were found stabbed to death in their home in Los Angeles on Sunday.
“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,” she said Monday during an appearance on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
Nick Reiner, the late couple’s 32-year-old son, has been “booked for murder,” according to Los Angeles Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell. The younger Reiner is being held on $4 million bail.
Reiner, a renowned Hollywood director, was also known for his advocacy of progressive causes and donations to Democratic candidates. His political opposition to President Donald Trump compelled the president to claim on Monday that Reiner died from “Trump derangement syndrome,” a term the president often uses to dismiss his critics.
Obama appeared to push back on Trump’s fabricated diagnosis, defending the couple as “not deranged” and courageous and caring people.
“And let me just say this. Unlike some people, Rob and Michelle Reiner are some of the most decent, courageous people you ever want to know,” she said in the late-night interview, to roaring applause from the audience.
“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,” the former first lady continued. “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.”
She added, “And they cared about fairness and equity. And that is the truth. I do know them.”
Trump on Monday responded to news of the Reiners’ deaths in a Truth Social post, which drew significant blowback even from a number of Republicans who saw the message as inappropriate after their violent deaths.
“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,” the president wrote Monday.
“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 continued. “May Rob and Michele rest in peace!”
Shortly after news surfaced of the Reiners’ deaths, former President Barack Obama issued a statement saying he and the former first lady were “heartbroken” by the loss of the legendary director whose “achievements in film and television gave us some of our most cherished stories on screen.”
“But beneath all of the stories he produced was a deep belief in the goodness of people—and a lifelong commitment to putting that belief into action,” Obama wrote on the social platform X. “Together, he and his wife lived lives defined by purpose.”
“They will be remembered for the values they championed and the countless people they inspired,” he continued. “We send our deepest condolences to all who loved them.”