In “The American President,” Andrew Shepherd makes an impassioned speech to the nation: “I've been here three years and three days, and I can tell you without hesitation: Being president of this country is entirely about character.”

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December 20, 2025

In “The American President,” Andrew Shepherd makes an impassioned speech to the nation: “I've been here three years and three days, and I can tell you without hesitation: Being president of this country is entirely about character.”

Rob Reiner and Aaron Sorkin’s movie is an early predecessor to “The West Wing,” and it carries the same idyllic, justice-driven energy — nostalgic of a time where politics and government were a noble pursuit to serve the people, not just a mechanism for Donald Trump and his cronies to gain and abuse power.

Ultimately, “The American President” is a rom-com, but its moral center is in the president’s love for country and commitment to the American people. It is certainly the product of a different time. But just as notably, it is certainly the product of Reiner, whose heart, passion and optimism were present in everything he touched — from “All in the Family” to “When Harry Met Sally” to “The Princess Bride.”

That passion was present in his political activism, too. Reiner was a fierce political operator, deeply involved in campaigns to overturn bans on same-sex marriage and fund early childhood education. He was involved in every Democratic campaign from Al Gore to Kamala Harris. And he was outspoken in his opposition to Donald Trump.

Reiner helped bring model presidents to life on screen, but Trump’s reaction to his death should be the true work of fiction. It was abhorrent, deranged and repulsive — but it is tragically what we have come to expect.

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On Truth Social, Trump wrote that Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer, were killed “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.”

To be clear, Reiner’s death was a tragedy that had nothing to do with the president, and Trump’s determination to make it about himself speaks both to his narcissism and rapidly declining mental health.

Trump continued, “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.”

If President Barack Obama or Joe Biden had tweeted such a disgusting message after the death of a beloved filmmaker, the legacy media would have called for their resignations. Republicans in Congress would have held hearings.

Instead, Trump’s post earned a day — if that — of coverage by the corporate-owned media, even as he doubles down on his disgusting words and lies, saying that Reiner was “very bad for our country.”

In the midst of Trump’s own derangement, CBS News was only willing to say “Trump disparages Rob Reiner's political views with ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ comment a day after his murder,” while The Washington Post pathetically wrote “Trump attack on Rob Reiner tests the limits, even for his MAGA base.”

Tests the limits? Disparages political views? That’s all the legacy media has to say about a person who uses the full weight of the presidency to attack an innocent man in the wake of his tragic death?

The way we behave and treat one another often trickles down from the attitudes and behaviors at the top. And as Trump has risen to power, I think we have forgotten what it feels like to have honorable men and women at the helm — something that Reiner captured so beautifully in his films and works of art.

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Where is our respect, kindness and dignity? Why do we no longer expect those basic principles from our president and those who surround him?

As I revisited “The American President,” I felt nostalgic for the civil servants running around the West Wing working to pass bipartisan legislation that served the American people. I yearned for the passion that they held for good, honest government.

Some may say that only existed in the fictional worlds of Rob Reiner and Aaron Sorkin. I disagree. With Trump in power for much of this decade — and with Republicans blocking progress even longer than that — we’ve set our standards too low and thrown our bar out the window.

Maybe President Andrew Shepherd said it best as he wrapped up his address to the nation. “We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious men to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, friend, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it,” he said of his opponent. “He is interested in two things and two things only: Making you afraid of it and telling you who's to blame for it.”

Rather than govern, Trump is blaming his critics for the problems he has created. He is blaming immigrants, minorities, and Democratic voters and politicians alike. He is blaming you and me.

Meanwhile, in Rob Reiner’s fictional White House, the president decides to fight for two pieces of legislation: an energy bill requiring a 20% reduction of fossil fuels over the next 10 years and a crime bill banning assault weapons and handguns. He also gets the girl. AI couldn’t write an ending this happy.

I’m devastated for the Reiner family, and I’m thinking of Rob and Michele’s loved ones during this awful time. I didn’t know Rob personally, but his work — both in politics and in the arts — spoke for what he believed in and what he would want us to fight for.

In his honor, we must keep fighting for a government that fights for us. We must keep fighting for a president who serves the people. And we must keep fighting for a country that embodies the love, decency and respect that shone through Rob Reiner’s films and touched each and every one of us so deeply.

Now, here's a little joy from our pawtners in the opposition.

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