Rob & Michele Singer Reiner: A Country That Can’t Even Mourn Right

There are some kinds of news that don’t just land in your mind.

A Country That Can’t Even Mourn Right

There are some kinds of news that don’t just land in your mind.

The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #691: Tuesday, December 16th, 2025.

They land in your chest.

The deaths of Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner are that kind of news…because this wasn’t simply “a celebrity story,” and it wasn’t just another tragic headline…sliding down the screen.

This was a brutal…intimate kind of violence; a husband and wife found stabbed to death…in their own home. So horrifying…that your brain tries to reject it on contact.

And…then, as if the grief itself weren’t enough…the story comes with a second wound: reports that their son was arrested in connection with their deaths.

Whatever the legal outcome becomes…whatever the motive ends up being…there is no version of this that is not a family destroyed.

So…here’s what I want to do first, before politics…before commentary…before the feeding frenzy: honor them.

Rob Reiner gave people something rare:

Stories that made us laugh, yes…but…also stories that reminded us what decency looks like when it’s under pressure.

He understood something…that a lot of powerful men never learn: that courage isn’t volume. It’s integrity. It’s saying the human thing…when it would be easier to say the cruel thing.

And Michele Singer Reiner…

…by every account from those who knew her…was not a footnote to a famous husband. She was a force of her own, a creator…a partner…a person who helped shape a life of meaning. She was loved. She mattered.

Now…here is where the sadness in me turns into something heavier…something that hurts in a specific way if you’ve served.

Because I know what it means to live under a chain of command.

I know what it means to wake up every morning…and understand there’s an ultimate direction…an ultimate authority…and that it’s supposed to represent more than policy. It’s supposed to represent standards.

And in the military, from the earliest days…boot camp…training…officer programs…there are values you’re drilled into. Not because they sound nice on a poster. Because without them…the whole thing collapses.

Respect. Discipline. Restraint. Honor. Dignity.

And one of the clearest standards you’re taught—explicitly and implicitly…is this:

You do not desecrate the dead.
You do not treat grief like a toy.
You do not turn tragedy into a personal punchline.

But…now…we live in a country where the person sitting at the top of that chain…the commander-in-chief…can respond to tragedy in ways that many people experience as degrading…cruel…or opportunistic.

Reports about Trump’s public response to the Reiners’ deaths have drawn widespread backlash…because it appeared to treat a horrific loss…as a political opportunity rather than a moment for dignity.

And if you’ve never served…you might read that and think: “Okay, he’s rude. So what?”

But if you have served…or…if you love someone who has…this hits different.

Because the values are not theoretical.

They’re survival equipment.

They’re the thing…that keeps young men and women from becoming monsters…when the world becomes monstrous. They’re the thing…that keeps power from turning into mere domination. They’re the thing…that makes service mean something more than force.

So…when the commander-in-chief models the opposite…when he treats death without reverence…when he makes cruelty seem like strength…it creates a kind of injury that isn’t easy to explain to people who haven’t lived inside a values-based chain of command.

It feels like betrayal.

Not of a party. Not of an ideology.

Of a standard.

And…it is painful…deeply painful…to know that there are men and women in uniform… who wake up…lace their boots…do their jobs…carry the weight…while the highest voice in the system…broadcasts behavior that contradicts the very first lessons of honor they were taught.

So yes: I’m sad.

I’m sad because two human beings are gone in a way no one should go.
I’m sad because their family…whatever the truth of it all…has been obliterated.
And…I’m sad because we live in a moment…where even grief gets stripped for parts and sold.

Rob and Michele deserved better than a violent end.

And…they deserved better than to become a prop in anyone’s performance afterward.

If there is any dignity left to insist on, it is this: we will not let cruelty be the national voice.

We will mourn the dead…as the dead deserve to be mourned.

We will honor their lives…not by turning away from the ugliness…but by refusing to imitate it.

Rest in peace, Rob Reiner.
Rest in peace, Michele Singer Reiner.

You mattered. And…you will.

-Jack
Jack Hopkins