ArcaMax

At first, when I saw it on Facebook, I thought someone had fallen for some AI slop, was reposting "fake news." Even President Donald Trump could not be that tasteless.

He could be. He is. This is the full post:

"A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, passed away with his wife, Michele. It was 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," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

"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. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!"

Instead of taking it down when cooler heads prevailed, the White House's rapid response account on X reposted Trump's Truth Social post.

Rob and Michele Reiner were murdered by the son they spent years trying to save. It is an unspeakable family tragedy that Donald Trump had to make be about him. Only a pathological narcissist could think this way, and even then, only one without a shred of decency would say it out loud. Everything must be about him. He is utterly lacking in empathy. There is something fundamentally wrong with this man, and he is on a power trip to undermine democratic values.

Why do Republicans tolerate and excuse the bad behavior of a pathological narcissist? Are there no limits to what he will say and do? Are there no limits to what he will get away with?

Rob and Michele were devoted parents whose lives ended in a nightmare. How can the President of the United States exploit that? He has no shame.

Sometimes I think about how history will treat moments like this in what will be written about as the Trump era. How will historians, with a bit of time to sharpen and clarify their appraisal, view the most powerful man in the world and the character he displays at moments like this?

Is this what Trump being Trump means? And if it is, what does that say about all things Trump?

You can count on one hand -- with a few fingers left -- the number of members of Congress from the Republican side who have stood up and condemned the president's remarks. And two of the three, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, have already had public falling outs with Trump. The rest don't touch him.

Is this how they bring up their children? To behave like Trump? I have to believe that we would all chastise our kids if they responded to a human tragedy the way Trump has responded to these murders -- making it all about him, blaming the victims, and their opposition to Trump, for what happened to them, a crazed response, you might say, if you weren't talking about the president giving comments on a murder case.

Maybe in a few days, people will forget about what Trump had to say about the Reiners. He says so many outrageous things that their sheer volume outweighs the efforts to single them out for individual attention. Even so, I suspect this one may stick. The public is not likely to lose interest in a case that has inserted itself so forcefully in our consciousness. And if you can't stop thinking about the case, how do you stop thinking about what Trump said?

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To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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