Jimmy Kimmel aimed his barbs at Donald Trump for his criticism of Rob Reiner following the filmmaker's passing this week. Reiner and his wife Michele Singer Reiner were found dead in their home on Sunday, just hours before their son Nick Reiner was arrested for allegedly killing them both. "This weekend is the kind that makes you wonder if things will ever feel normal again," Kimmel remarked as he opened his monologue on Monday night. The host referenced the mass shooting at Australia's Bondi Beach, the school shooting at Brown University, and the "murder of one of our greatest directors and patriots, Rob Reiner, and his wife Michele."
"What we need in a time like this, besides common sense when it comes to guns and mental health care, is compassion and leadership," Kimmel said. "But we didn't get that from our president because he has none to give. Instead, we got a fool rambling about nonsense." Kimmel shared Trump's unhinged Truth Social post about the Reiner family, in which the president wrote that the couple had "passed away" 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."
"Just when you think he can't go any lower, he somehow finds a way to do that," Kimmel responded. "His description of what happened is not at all what happened. And this is exactly what I've spoken about before. This rush to pin the tail on the donkey in pursuit of the Trump-friendly narrative. Blaming his death on the fact that he's an outspoken liberal, insulting someone who has just been murdered, who leaves children behind, without having any idea of what actually happened. It's so hateful and vile."
Kimmel added that when he first saw Trump's post, he thought it was fake. "Even for him that seemed like too much," he said. "But nothing is ever too much for him." Trump doubled down on his comments later in the day, again calling Reiner "deranged" to reporters at the White House. "I thought he was very bad for our country," Trump said.
"That corroded brain is in charge of our lives," Kimmel noted after showing a clip of Trump speaking about Reiner. "If you voted for that, it's okay to reconsider... I know from my personal interactions with Rob Reiner that he would want us to keep pointing out the loathsome atrocities that continue to ooze out of this sick and irresponsible man's mouth. And so we're going to do that, over and over again, until the rest of us wake up." He added, "This is how he behaves at Christmastime!"
Later on the show, Kimmel welcomed Michelle Obama as one of his guests. During the interview, the former First Lady shared that she and Barack Obama had known the Reiners for "many, many years." "We were supposed to be seeing them that night, last night," she said. "And we got the news. Let me just say this, unlike some people, Rob and Michele Reiner are some of the most recent, courageous people you ever want to know. They are 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. They were the kind of people who were ready to put their actions behind what they cared about." She added, "And they cared about their family. And they cared about this country. And they cared about fairness and equity. And that is the truth. I do know them."
