By John F. Di Leo, Opinion Contributor
When someone famous dies, you don’t always have to comment.
There are so many deaths every day – a couple hundred thousand per day, worldwide – that you can’t possibly mention all of them. If there’s a death you don’t want to talk about, you usually don’t have to.
With the readership of social media and the mainstream press being as touchy as they often are these days, in fact, one might be well advised to steer clear of a lot of death notices. If there’s anything controversial about it, why venture into a battle that could be easily avoided?
But sometimes you can’t avoid one, and sometimes, frankly, you shouldn’t.
Consider the horrible death of Rob Reiner in California, the weekend of December 13, 2025.
Conan O’Brien hosted a Christmas party on Saturday night, at which Rob Reiner (78) and his son Nick (32) got into a loud argument. On Sunday, Reiner’s daughter Romy discovered Rob and Michelle Reiner dead in their home; it was later revealed that her brother Nick had (allegedly) killed both of their parents in a cold blood, in a gruesome stabbing scene.
Immediately, as one would expect, both the entertainment press and the mainstream news started releasing obituaries, news reports and other commentary.
He was Hollywood royalty, it was a horrific murder story, and he had been a political activist for decades. Such a news story could hardly be avoided.
There’s no question how the entertainment press would cover it: with a host of appropriate accolades about Rob Reiner’s work, from costarring in “All in the Family” in the 1970s to his splendid directing work on such hits as “The Princess Bride,” “This is Spinal Tap,” and “When Harry Met Sally.” And of course the regular news would focus on the murder story, a tragic case of a drug-addled ingrate so deranged that he murders his parents.
But how should politicians and commentators cover it?
Two old sayings might give us some guidance: “Never speak ill of the dead,” and “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”
Democrat politicians and marxist activist groups, appreciative of his years of support, will naturally wax eloquent about Reiner’s contributions. Republican politicians and pundits might understandably stay silent, considering how vicious Reiner has been to conservatives and conservatism, particularly the current President, for decades.
President Trump, never one to avoid an opportunity to make an important point, issued a long tweet on the matter. He referred to the murder as tragic, and referred to Reiner as being a very talented actor and director, but also took the opportunity to acknowledge Reiner’s severe case of TDS and Reiner’s decade of unhinged attacks on Trump’s movement and himself.
We might be forgiven if we’d ask, “Why go there?” It could have been a standard, generic acknowledgement with just the opening line, if he had left it at that, and moved on with his day.
But sometimes there’s more to say, sometimes something that nobody else will say, so you have to be the one.
Perhaps President Trump felt we should make the point that when a talented director spends decades as a political activist, daily attacking half the country as viciously as he can, pouring money and resources into the most anti-American movements possible, well, maybe by doing so he has forfeited the right to expect an issues-free, politics-free, judgment-free obituary when he dies.
To many Americans, Rob Reiner was just an actor and director, and they don’t even know this other side of him.
But to politicians and activists, Reiner was a leader on the Left, a huge donor and organizer of wealthy backers for the most anti-American, the most destructive, of policies. As such, is it reasonable to assume that his passing wouldn’t include some judgment on these matters?
At minimum, Reiner had been personally attacking President Trump almost daily for a decade, calling him the worst insults imaginable. Why should we expect the President to hold back if he thinks a valuable point can be made?
From a policy perspective though – for this is a policy-focused publication, after all – there are a number of points to make about this news story, points that may be unpleasant to discuss now, but which simply must be discussed now, because it’s relevant.
We have a violence problem, a drug problem, a homelessness problem, a healthcare problem, in America today, and this story touches on aspects of these; they are worth addressing while this story is on the public mind.
President Trump’s war on drugs is in the news every day. We’ve sunk three drug-running boats in the Pacific so far this week; it’s a huge issue. Part of it is demand-driven; we have to get Americans to stop wanting these illegal drugs. Part of it is supply-driven; we have to keep the drug gangs out of the country, and catch and imprison the pushers who spread these poisons.
It’s drug abuse that’s responsible for most of the homelessness; it’s drug abuse that causes much of the high cost of healthcare, by filling emergency rooms with victims of drug-related crimes.
When we advocate this war on drugs, it is the Left that claims it’s not worth fighting; they champion the freedom to enjoy recreational drugs and they dismiss our arguments that these drugs are lethal.
Now we have the Reiner story in the headlines.
Nick Reiner has been a drug addict since childhood – his current drug of choice is reportedly meth, but has likely used other things over the years – he was in and out of rehab facilities a dozen times before he was out of his teens. What got him stuck on these drugs in the first place? Where did he obtain them (in a Hollywood that’s been rife with dealers for generations)? Why are these sources tolerated?
Nick Reiner – and thousands like him – resorted to living on the streets, doing all manner of illegal things, because of his addictions.
The Right wants to reduce the incidence of addiction. The Left wants to show compassion to the drug addicts, but none to their victims – the neighborhoods ruined by homeless tent villages, the stores robbed, the pedestrians mugged by addicts craving money to feed their habit, the bystanders injured or killed in turf wars, the children and parents conscripted into the gangs against their will.
Nick Reiner – and thousands like him – may start out with a brand of mental illness, or may start out with drug abuse, but eventually the two meld into something worse, a tendency toward violence, an addled sense of entitlement, a level of selfishness that enables him to justify the most terrible things, eventually, a lethal rage and the murder of his own parents.
Drug addicts don’t always literally kill family members, of course, but they do often terrorize their siblings or parents, they do often abuse them, they do often financially ruin them. All because they let themselves get addicted in the first place.
Some people get addicted right away; some can use for months or years without truly becoming addicted. It varies by the person, by the drug, by the frequency… the only things that are certain are that you don’t know, going in, how long it will take you to become addicted, and once you are, it’s too late. The only solution is to never abuse drugs at all.
But what message does the Left send? That our fears and warnings are overrated, that this risk really isn’t all that bad. That it’s not worth killing the drug –runners on those boats full of cocaine; let them land, let them distribute the stuff.
This weekend’s news story brings this issue into focus:
Somebody is going to get killed.
If the Right has our way, it’s the drug runners who’ll be killed, and Rob and Michele Reiner who will live. But if the Left has their way, the drug runners will live, and it’s Rob and Michele Reiner who will be killed.
Yes, it’s as simple as that.
Economics isn’t a zero sum game, but crime policy is. When you allow criminals to run free, more innocent victims will die. Period.
One more question is worth asking, as we learn more and more about Nick Reiner’s descent into depression and addiction. What was it about his background, his family life, that might have contributed, or at least, that didn’t help dissuade him, from this path of addiction and homelessness that he chose?
The Reiner family is Jewish by ethnicity, but they have renounced the great heritage of the Jewish religion that was their birthright. Carl Reiner and his son Rob were both vocal atheists.
Christian children have Sunday School, Jewish children have Hebrew School. This religious training in childhood – even if parents aren’t particularly devout – helps ground a child in the basic morality needed for civil society. It reinforces the morals you learn at home in a good family, and it provides the necessary moral framework if there’s none at home in a deficient family.
What kind of childhood did the Reiner children have – where morality is concerned? Three of them seem to have turned out okay, but the fourth one turned to drugs awfully young. Might a few years of proper Hebrew school have made the difference? Perhaps not; we’ll never know for sure. But we do know that this family skipped one key aspect of parenthood: at least attempting to raise your children with respect for God and His law. Who knows? That might just have made the difference.
Again, this isn’t just about the Reiner family and their tragedy; it’s an opportunity for us all to discuss the issues, and to see if we can learn something from this awful event.
There are countless families that are raised in religious homes that turn out well; there are many raised in religious homes that turn out poorly. But that religious underpinning can at least provide a greater layer of resistance when temptation comes; even if it’s not enough for everyone, it helps many. Perhaps it could have helped more than the Reiners ever imagined. Perhaps if they’d given their son this one little additional weapon against his temptations, not only might their black sheep have turned out better, but they themselves might be alive today.
Rob Reiner himself, as an individual, is a victim in this story, Gentle Reader, please don’t assume that this exploration of the issues is in any way a deflection of responsibility away from the actual killer, who is at this writing just the “alleged” killer, though police indicate that there is no doubt.
Rather, it is a rare opportunity to explore an issue in the news with considerable evidence.
Much like the comparison of socialism and capitalism which one can do by simply looking at a map of the Korean peninsula, the Reiner murder case is an opportunity to see Leftist policies and attitudes on display, and to evaluate their results.
It’s tragic; it’s horrible, and the world has lost a talented director.
But it also provides a number of lessons about America and our world, lessons we would be well-advised to learn.
Copyright 2025 John F. Di Leo
