Days after seeing Rob Reiner and wife, Gov. JB Pritzker mourns deaths and blasts Trump's response to tragedy

Olivia Olander, Chicago Tribune on Dec 15, 2025

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Gov. JB Pritzker on Monday mourned the deaths of Hollywood filmmaker Rob Reiner and his wife this weekend, noting he was with both of them in Los Angeles just four days ago, as the governor also lambasted President Donald Trump’s reaction to the tragedy.

In addition to being a Hollywood A-lister who both made films and acted, Reiner was a well-known liberal activist and donor to Democratic candidates and causes. Pritzker last week headlined a Democratic fundraiser in Los Angeles that was co-hosted by Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, a campaign spokesperson said, days before the couple was found dead Sunday at their home in the Brentwood neighborhood, The Associated Press reported.

Police said Rob Reiner’s younger son, Nick Reiner, was in police custody Monday for what investigators believe was a fatal stabbing of the couple, according to the AP.

“I was with them four days ago, and these are some terrific people. They care deeply about people. And they have political views, but they also were just people,” Pritzker said. “They’ve been philanthropic. They care about their community.”

Trump, a Republican who has often been harshly criticized by Rob Reiner, addressed the deaths in a post on his social media channel, Truth Social, in which the president referred to himself in the third person, insulted Reiner and said the actor and director had “driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump.”

“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, “ Trump wrote, adding a few more digs in Reiner before ending the post stating, “May Rob and Michele rest in peace!”

Pritzker on Monday criticized the president’s mocking comments.

“Today is yet another example of the — well, the terrible nature of our president, when he’s attacking Rob Reiner and Michele Reiner,” Pritzker said at an unrelated news conference in Springfield.

Reiner was a co-founder of the American Foundation for Equal Rights and chaired the campaign for Prop 10, a California initiative to fund early childhood development services through a tax on tobacco products.

Pritzker praised the couple’s work on early childhood development, one of his own policy interests, saying “probably the most important work, maybe in the nation, was done by them.”

“And to have the president of the United States attacking them, and really — I just, I don’t understand. I don’t understand. I don’t understand why the president has to do things like this,” Pritzker said. “What is wrong with him, that he has to attack people, especially when their families are suffering?”

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