Brett Cooper — A Weekend of Horror—and Trump’s Response Made It Worse | Episode 109

So, objectively speaking, this was a devastating weekend around the world. But thanks to one untimely post on Truth Social, now all eyes are on Trump. I mean, everything feels heavy today. I posted that on my Instagram story, but there there was just so much awful news this weekend. There was a disgusting attack on a Hanukkah celebration in Bondi Beach, Australia. There was a shooting at Brown University, a thwarted terrorist attack in Los Angeles that was supposedly going to take place on New Year's Eve.

And then on Saturday night, Hollywood director Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle Reiner were brutally murdered in their LA home, allegedly by their son. And Trump's response was shocking and frankly despicable. Now, before we dive into that and my thoughts on all of that, please consider leaving a like and hitting that subscribe button if you enjoy this episode or if you learned something. And if you want to stay up to date on all of our episodes of the Red Cooper Show, make sure to ring that notification bell.

All right, so I first want to say that my prayers are with the families of the 15 people as of now who are murdered in Bondai Beach and the two students who were murdered at Brown University. The Bondi Beach attack was clearly motivated by a radical ideology. They targeted a Hanukkah celebration. There is a theory that the same could be said for the attack at Brown University. The two students who were murdered were 19-year-old Ella Cook and 18-year-old Muhammad Aziz Umeov.

Um, hopefully I pronounced that correctly, were both shot and killed. In their own rights, they just seemed like incredible, incredible young people. Ella was the vice president of the school's only conservative student organization, Young Republicans, and police allegedly have reason to believe that the attack was targeting her and her conservative peers. Allegedly, that is what they told her family when they called to notify them.

But that has not been confirmed yet. It probably won't be confirmed for a while, considering the gunman has not been found. I am filming this on Monday evening and as of now they arrested and then released one potential suspect. They are now on day three of a manhunt for this shooter which is just insane because in the world that we live in today at a school like Brown, you would think that there would be cameras that there would be surveillance everywhere but all they have found is one grainy video of this alleged shooter walking through a neighborhood.

They have posted online and say, "Hey, if you know anything about this person, you can like not even make out his face or what he is wearing." So obviously it's not giving families or students or Americans a lot of trust in these institutions. There's not a lot of trust in any institutions at the moment, even when it comes to how our own president responds to a tragedy. Which brings me to the killing of Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle.

Now if you don't know who that is, Rob Reiner is a legendary Hollywood director, actor, producer, writer. He was behind movies like A Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally. He and his wife Michelle have four adult children. And on Saturday afternoon, they were stabbed to death and then their throats were slit in their home. They were later found dead by their youngest daughter, Ramy, or Ramy. I'm not sure how she pronounces her name.

And then within hours, the devastating news came out that the leading suspect was Robin Michelle's son, Nick Reiner, who has long and publicly battled with addiction and mental illness. And that evening, Nick was arrested for the murder. Initially, he was being held with a $4 million bail, and now he is being held without bail. I mean, the entire situation is just absolutely horrifying. And I cannot imagine the trauma that their other children are facing, especially their daughter that had to find her parents in that situation.

But this family, they have been like, as shocking and devastating as it is, this is not, you know, a sudden display from their brother Nick. You know, this family has been allegedly trying to keep Nick afloat for more than a decade. Like I said, Nick has had a very public battle with addiction since he was 15 years old. And he has spent years publicly in and out of rehab, on and off the streets. And back in 2015, he and his dad even did a movie together called Being Charlie.

It was based on his experiences and the struggle that his family had faced while they all dealt with his addiction. The plot I believe is it follows a young man who is in and out of rehab much like Nick was while living in the shadow of a very very famous and prolific father who was trying to keep up appearances trying to keep the family together. So again very akin to the life that he was living as the child of a very successful famous you know Hollywood star.

A 2016 interview with People said that Nick Reiner was packed off to his first rehab facility around his 15th birthday now 22. Again this was you know a decade ago. He has co-written a film loosely based on that experience and the 17 rehab stays that follow. That's just 17 between the years of 15 and 22. It's directed by his dad and the one thing that Charlie, that's a character faces briefly in the film, is homelessness, something with which Nick has significantly more experience.

I was homeless in Maine. I was homeless in New Jersey. I was homeless in Texas. I spent nights on the street. I spent weeks on the street. It was not fun. Nick soldier on the streets and in and out of shelters came after he refused to go back to rehab. quote, "If I wanted to do it my way and not go to the programs that they were suggesting, then I had to be homeless." And this whole thing, and you guys, if you watch my show a lot, you probably know, but the whole thing just gives me chills because like I I know this story.

Like, my family has lived it with my brother. And what is so especially devastating is when you get these glimpses of hope that I'm sure Rob and his wife and their entire family saw. You know, you you see little glimpses of the person that you love. You know, you see them start to get better, feel better, start to get clean. They start to find passions again. and he wants to do a movie with his dad and tell his story.

He's gone to rehab 17 times and now something is finally sticking and then it all crashes down. And sometimes you have no idea what causes that break. You don't know what causes it. And you things could be perfectly fine. They could be medicated. They could be doing great and something just cracks. And each individual family has to decide if they want to keep fighting, if they want to try new things or if it's safer just to give up and let go.

Kind of like what he's talking about in this interview. Like if you're not going to stay on track, then you just have like we can't protect you anymore. we cannot keep up this, you know, endless cycle of, you know, rehabilitation and trauma when nothing is working. And it's just, it's devastating. The entire thing is just horrifying. Now, before we get into more of this, I want to thank my sponsors who stick with me even when we do this type of episode.

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You'll be able to choose from chicken thighs, wagu burgers, or bacon in every box for the life of your subscription. Again, that is good.com code Brett for $40 off and free meat for life. Good ranchers.com. Let's get back to the table. Now, back to the point that I was trying to make there. Rob and Michelle, to their incredible credit, they allegedly continued to fight for him. They continued to stick by Nick. They tried to do what they thought was best.

And family members allegedly told TMZ, this just came out a couple of hours ago, that Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle and their son Nick attended Conan O'Brien's Christmas party on Saturday night. At the party, Rob and Nick got into a very loud argument, loud enough for many others to hear. Riner family sources tell TMZ. We're told that Rob and Michelle then left the party. We do not know if Nick left as well. Our family sources add that Michelle had been anguishing to friends over the last few months that she and Rob were at their wits end over Nick's mental illness and the alleged substance abuse issues and did not know what to do with their son, saying, "We have tried everything."

And based on what I'm reading, as I'm now learning about this family, it truly seems like they did try everything. But it also seems, and again, I'm just saying this as somebody, you know, with experience, but still looking, you know, from the outside in, it seems like Nick was able to manipulate them and get them to trust him over the medical professionals. Douglas Mccay made a post today and said, "Sadly, it looks like Rob Reiner son was manipulating his parents for a long time.

They sided with their son over the addiction specialists who explained that he was lying to them and manipulating them." Rob even apologized to his son for demanding that he shape up, even declaring that he'd put up with his son hating him if it meant he wasn't dead. In another interview, Rob said that quote, "Tough love wasn't for him and that he quote would do anything to keep his child safe." Rob was a man whose kindness and love towards his son was ultimately rewarded with a slit throat.

Very sad. Parents, take heed if it's your child in rehab for addiction. And one of the examples that Douglas gave was this excerpt from an interview back on the Being Charlie movie press tour where they said, quote, "The program works for some people, but it can't work for everyone." Rob said, "When Nick would tell us that it wasn't working for him, we wouldn't listen. We were desperate, and because the people had diplomas on their wall, we listened to them when we should have been listening to our son."

Michelle added, "We were so influenced by these people. They would tell us that he's a liar, that he was trying to manipulate us, and we believed him." And this seems like it was a common theme in their family. And Rob echoes this in an interview here again on the Being Charlie breast tour. >> If your kid is going through rough times, you you know the parent is your main job is to keep your child safe. So I I I would do anything.

I did I even I felt at a loss. So I would do anything that as we say in the film, anybody with a desk and a diploma, I would listen to them. And the whole idea of tough love and you have to be a certain way and I it's not my nature. It's not the way I am built, but I went and did that, you know. And I think that uh you know at the end of the day I know my child better than an expert does and I probably should have trusted my own instinct.

And that's one of the things I did learn about the whole experience. >> And what's so devastating in watching this clip is that you can see that Rob feels like they've reached the other side. You know, like he did the right thing. He didn't listen to the experts. You know, he did not believe that his son was lying or or manipulating him. They're working on this movie together. His son is probably clean at this point.

He feels like they, you know, he is healed. They have their son back. He's clean. Their family could move forward. And obviously that was not the case. And it is clear that even though they were willing to do anything, that they were willing to listen to him versus the experts or the doctors, Nick still harbored a certain resentment in my opinion towards his family, which is probably why he portrayed his father in the movie as a quote unquote [ __ ] which Howard Stern referenced here.

>> Rob, was this difficult for you to see that your son has written a script basically calling you out? >> No, it was easy. Easy to hear that. >> Right back to the psychiatrist. >> Yeah. No, you know, it's funny because, you know, I helped uh develop it with with him and his writing partner, Matt Alisafen, and the first draft was like 190 pages, and the father was a complete [ __ ] I mean, [laughter] it wasn't just a minor assh.

It was complete [ __ ] At one point, Nick says to me, he comes up, he says, "The father's too much of an [ __ ] >> right? >> We got to, you know, find other ways." >> And then we didn't do anything. We just kept him an [ __ ] [laughter] But in a way, do you think >> tempered him a little bit? >> Do you think you started to see the father not so much as an [ __ ] because in real life you were working with your father and now all of a sudden you felt closer to him?

>> Well, I did think he was an [ __ ] and then and he probably thought I was one. >> And listen, as Nick was writing this film, I'm sure it made sense to portray his dad as an [ __ ] because when you are unstable, when you are an addict, it is very easy to hate somebody who will not enable you or let your life spiral. It is one of the hardest parts of loving somebody with severe mental illness or addiction because you know that you are doing what you believe is right.

You know you were trying to protect them but they don't see it that way. And I think that is the point when you have to decide if you need to let go. In the comments on Douglas Mackey's post that we read a couple minutes ago, there were a lot of sentiments like this. Somebody commented and said, "I'm a recovering opiate addict. 12 years clean and sober now. I know all about manipulating my family. I feel blessed that they gave me an ultimatum to get help and save my life."

Another person said, "I haven't dealt with serious substance addiction in my family, but we did have to deal with serious mental illness. We ended up institutionalizing her, which was way harder than it should have been under the circumstances. Quote unquote, kindness would have never resolved the situation or protected us from her." And listen, no family, in my opinion, and in my experience, is better or worse based on how they choose to proceed in this, you know, situation because it's an impossible situation to be in.

It's devastating. It is heartbreaking. You never know if you're doing the right thing. And it's hard to trust experts when, like Rob said, you know, you have your person that you love here that's, you know, begging you to do something else, but you know that they're struggling, that they could manipulate you because they're an addict or whatever it is. And so I look at all this and I listen to these interviews and I just see Rob who's trying to be a good man and a good father for wanting to trust his son and trying everything.

And so I've seen comments from people where they're saying, you know, he should have known better. He should have done something different. Like I don't I don't see it that way. I mean, it it's tragic, but he was trying to do right by his child. And I don't think anybody can fight with that now. devastatingly and frankly just shocking and crazy. An almost identical story happened just a few days prior when a Grammy nominated singer uh his name is Jubilant Skies.

He was similarly stabbed and then killed allegedly by his schizophrenic son who was unmedicated at the time. And this took place just a few miles away in Santa Monica. Now, because Jubilant Skies is not as famous as Rob Reiner, the story did not really come out until the story of Rob came out. And, you know, people were posting about it and talking about these two stories. And based on all of that, I saw a lot of comments from people talking about, you know, these crazy Hollywood families and they're effed up kids.

They're mentally ill addict children and how we have to protect people, you know, from the Hollywood virus and all that. And like sure, yes, objectively we can say that, you know, Hollywood has its fair share of crazies and mental illness, but like but this is a more universal issue and you should count yourself as lucky if you haven't had to experience anything like this or if you haven't even been forced to realize that.

Somebody on TikTok said, "Poor people and middle-class people go through the same exact struggles. Addiction is not about wealth or poverty, and it does not discriminate in the slightest." And so in my mind, the fact that this is such a common struggle for families in America, it's something that the Trump administration allegedly has been wanting to address. They're wanting to address the drug crisis. They're wanting to address mental illness.

It just makes Trump's comments even more tonedeaf. So this is what he wrote on Truth Social that I've been referencing this entire episode. He said, "A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away together with his wife Michelle, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive and incurable affliction with a mind crippling virus known as Trump derangement syndrome, sometimes referred to as TDS.

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 Robin Michelle rest in peace. Before I get into my thoughts on that, uh I hate I hate what he said. I will say a lot of leftists are, you know, laughing and they're saying, "Oh, look at him, you know, celebrating their deaths."

I will defend Trump there momentarily. I don't see this as a celebration. He did say he was sad. Rest in peace. But it is a blatant twisting of the facts to center himself in the story, which is totally wrong. It's totally inappropriate and completely uncalled for. Now, I do however feel like I am like in that meme from the office where, you know, Dwight is standing there and Angela comes up behind him and he's like, "Oh, [ __ ] You're behind me."

Like, that's how I feel right now because like, yes, I agree that this was totally uncalled for. Yes, I agree that this is disgusting. But that does not make me one of you. You don't have the moral high ground to sit here and laugh at Trump. Yes, you can call him out. You should call him out for this. But don't pretend that you are holier than thou when these same people commenting and mocking him and pointing the finger, we're celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk.

You have no grounds to stand on. I don't want to hear it from you. like this is not your battle to fight right now. And I'm also seeing so many comments from people who are laughing and going, "Hey, this is what you voted for. This is Trump. This you shouldn't be surprised." But I am surprised. I am shocked. I'm disappointed because Trump seemingly knows better. He has done better. I mean, think about when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died.

Trump's now viral video. He was so kind. He was empathetic. He was thoughtful. All politics aside, just watch. >> He just died. >> Wow. [music] >> I didn't know that. I just You're telling me now for the first time? [music] She led an amazing life. >> What else can you say? She was an amazing woman. Whether you agreed or not, she was an amazing woman [music] who led [singing] an amazing life. >> That man is in there.

He has shown empathy. He has shown understanding even when faced with people who hate him year after year after year. SO LIKE WHAT WHAT WAS THIS? WHAT WAS THIS POST? LIKE has he cracked or something? Some people pushed back and they were trying to rationalize it and explain the point that he was making. mostly peaceful meme said, "The point Trump is making in his post is that Rob was consumed by his obsessive hatred.

It corrupts the soul and permeates to those around you. That is the correct lesson that should be taken from this." And I saw a bunch of comments like that and truth be told, it just made me angrier because I think it is so crass. I think it is so superficial to blame a son's 17 at least 17-year battle with addiction and mental illness and the murdering of his own parents on his father's decadel long feud with Donald Trump because he disagreed with his politics and obviously parents and their attitudes can impact their children but based on the facts based on the timeline this was not the reason there is no way to explain this I don't need to take a lesson from that post like imagine the message that this sends to conservative parents who do not have obsessive hatred or Trump derangement syndrome and yet still have children who are addicts who are still struggling with family members who are in and out of institutions like this is a cope.

We don't need to rationalize this. We don't need to try to make it better. I don't care. This was tonedeaf. It was wrong to say. And I understand I get that Rob hated Trump. I get that he spent a decade viciously attacking Trump. I understand Trump hating him for that. But there is a time and place to talk about that. It certainly was not today. And it is especially gross considering the class that Rob had even as a raging and often angry violent leftist when Charlie was murdered.

This is what he said to Pierce Morgan. >> And I unfortunately saw the video of it and it's uh it's indis what happened to him. And uh that should never happen to anybody. I don't care what your political beliefs are. That's not acceptable. That's not a solution uh to uh to solving problems. >> Now, earlier this morning, Andrew Kulvette from Charlie's team posted that and said, "Rob Riner responded with grace and compassion to Charlie's assassination.

This video makes it all the more painful to hear of he and his wife's tragic end. May God be close to the brokenhearted in this terrible story. And it makes it even more painful than to read Trump's post, which came out just a couple of hours later." Now, thankfully, based on what I've seen, the rest of the online conservative movement has shown great class. You know, they are celebrating his movies and his legacy. They're commiserating about the drug crisis and the mental illness crisis.

They're sending prayers to his family. I thought this post was especially beautiful. Polymath said, "It seems like Rob Reiner was killed and I'm tremendously sad about it. I think he was a good man." One of the weird things about being a conservative intellectual is loving people who hate you. Reiner had more than enough rants about how he hated people like me. I don't care. He was brilliant and he was kind. He was a passionate and good man and I'm okay with him being grumpy.

And you know, I would add even more so than just grumpy. The conservatives exist and vote. It's a free country and it's good that he said what he thought. We are richer for the art that he brought into this world and we are richer for his political criticism. Every word that he said held value and we are poorer without him. And I have also seen posts from basically everyone about how tonedeaf Trump's response was. From Robbie Starbucks to Sage Steel to Gad Sad to Thomas Massie.

I mean everyone. And so seeing that does at least give me hope for our side. It makes me feel good about where I sit politically. You know the fact that we are not hiveminded no matter what people say about us. You know, we do push back when we disagree, even if it is against the president. And we are willing to rise above hatred and politics to have basic human dignity and empathy, even when we are not shown the same grace in return.