response

Spencer Pratt, a reality television star who lost his home in the Palisades fire and then emerged as a sharp critic of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom, announced Wednesday that he will run for mayor.

The former star of “The Hills” has spent much of the last year firing off social media posts blaming the mayor and governor for the Palisades fire, which killed 12 people and burned more than 6,800 homes.

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Pratt made his announcement at the “They Let Us Burn” event in Pacific Palisades on the one-year anniversary of the fire.

“We’re going to expose the system. We’re going into every dark corner of L.A. politics and disinfecting the city with our light,” he said to a crowd of hundreds, many of whom cheered.

Former L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner, who is running against Bass, has also attacked the mayor’s performance on the fire, saying she has not accepted responsibility for the city’s failures.

Community organizer Rae Huang, who is running from Bass’ left, has offered her own critique, saying the mayor has engaged in too much finger-pointing.

Still unclear is whether real estate developer Rick Caruso — another outspoken critic of Bass on the fire — will launch a second mayoral bid. Bass defeated him in 2022 by a comfortable margin.

L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who represents the areas that burned in the Palisades fire and who has also criticized the city’s response to the fire, said Monday night that she is still considering her own run for L.A. mayor.

Speaking with CNN’s Elex Michaelson, Horvath said she is “listening to a lot of the people who are encouraging me to get into this race, people who are looking for a different kind of leadership.”

“You know, there are a lot of people who are asking me about running for mayor,” Horvath said. “And I think it’s because they see that we are setting up in the county a different structure of accountability, and that’s long overdue for the region.”

The Palisades fire has become a serious political liability for Bass as the mayoral race gains momentum. She was out of the country on a diplomatic mission to Ghana when the fire ignited.

Since then, she has faced criticism over a series of issues surrounding the city’s emergency response, including LAFD deployment, the fact that the Santa Ynez reservoir was empty, and the Fire Department’s failure to put out a New Year’s Day fire that eventually rekindled into the Palisades fire.

Bass, for her part, said Tuesday that she is using the full extent of her mayoral powers to “restore the Palisades community and return families home as quickly and safely as possible.”

Bass’ campaign team did not immediately respond to an inquiry about Pratt’s announcement. But earlier this week, they took direct aim at Pratt and other critics, accusing them of using the disaster for their personal benefit.

“For the first time ever we saw a major wildfire politicized by MAGA leaders and monetized by social influencers making tens of thousands of dollars per month and hawking books on the backs of a devastated community,” said Bass campaign spokesperson Doug Herman. “While some may choose to divide people and tear down the progress that’s being made, Mayor Bass will continue to work to unite people and focus on doing everything that she can to get everyone in the Palisades back in homes, business re-opened, and beloved community spaces up and running again so that the Palisades can once again thrive.

Pratt and his wife, reality television personality Heidi Montag, sued the city in January after their Palisades house burned down, arguing that the Santa Ynez reservoir should not have been offline and empty when the fire erupted.

As recently as Tuesday, Pratt posted on X saying he was “shocked that 7% of Angelenos have ‘a great deal of confidence’ in their city and state government.”

“Have they looked around?” he wrote.

In the past, Pratt has also hinted at a run for governor. On his website, he still advertises “Spencer for Governor” shirts for $20, at a more than a 50% discount.

Pratt became famous in the aughts for his role on “The Hills,” where he was known as Montag’s boyfriend-turned-husband. He has also appeared on “Celebrity Big Brother” and “The Hills: New Beginnings.”

US president says he would back attacks if Tehran rebuilds nuclear or missile programmes.

Iran has promised to respond harshly to any aggression after United States President Donald Trump threatened further military action, should Tehran attempt to rebuild its nuclear programme or missile capabilities.

President Masoud Pezeshkian issued the warning on X on Tuesday, a day after Trump met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Florida estate, where he firmly leaned into the Israeli regional narrative yet again.

The US had not previously said it would target Iran’s missile capabilities, which has long been an Israeli aspiration, focusing instead on Tehran’s nuclear programme. Iran has repeatedly said its nuclear activities are for civilian purposes only, and neither US intelligence nor the UN’s nuclear watchdog found any evidence of atomic weapons production before the June attacks by the US and Israel.

Iran has ruled out negotiating over its missile programme.

The leaders’ comments raise the spectre of renewed conflict just months after a devastating 12-day war in June that killed more than 1,100 Iranians and left 28 in Israel dead.

Pezeshkian said the response of Iran to any aggression would be “severe and regret-inducing”. His defiant message came hours after Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort that Washington could carry out another major assault on Iran.

“Now I hear that Iran is trying to build up again, and if they are, we’re going to have to knock them down,” Trump said, standing alongside Netanyahu. “We’ll knock the hell out of them.”

The US president said he would support strikes on Iran’s nuclear programme “immediately” and on its missile facilities if Tehran continues developing long-range weapons.

Israeli officials have expressed concern in recent weeks that Iran is quietly rebuilding its ballistic missile stockpile, which was significantly depleted during the June conflict.

“If the Americans do not reach an agreement with the Iranians that halts their ballistic missile program, it may be necessary to confront Tehran,” an Israeli official told Ynet this week.

Pezeshkian recently described the standoff as a “full-scale war” with the US, Israel and Europe that is “more complicated and more difficult” than Iran’s bloody conflict with Iraq in the 1980s, which left more than one million dead.

The June war saw Israel launch nearly 360 strikes across 27 Iranian provinces over 12 days, according to conflict monitoring group ACLED, targeting military installations, nuclear facilities and government buildings.

The assault destroyed an estimated 1,000 Iranian ballistic missiles and killed more than 30 senior military commanders and at least 11 nuclear scientists.

Iran fired more than 500 missiles at Israel during the conflict, with approximately 36 landing in populated areas. While Trump claimed Iranian nuclear capabilities were “completely obliterated” by the strikes, experts disputed that, saying Tehran may have hidden stockpiles of enriched uranium and could resume production within months.

Despite the losses, Iranian officials insist the country is now better prepared for confrontation. In a recent interview, Pezeshkian said Iran’s military forces are “stronger in terms of equipment and manpower” than before the ceasefire.

The war failed to trigger the internal unrest it is suspected that Netanyahu had hoped for. No significant protests materialised, and daily life in Tehran largely continued despite the bombardment.

Dec. 25 (Asia Today) — North Korea released images of Kim Jong-un inspecting what it called a nuclear-powered submarine construction project, a move analysts said was aimed at casting South Korea’s debate over nuclear-powered submarines as a security threat while justifying Pyongyang’s own push to strengthen its strategic nuclear forces.

The Korean Central News Agency reported Thursday that Kim described South Korea’s pursuit of nuclear-powered submarines as a threat that must be countered and offered remarks defending North Korea’s development of nuclear-powered submarines. Analysts said the message used Seoul’s discussion as a pretext to portray North Korea’s strategic weapons buildup as inevitable.

North Korea has previously unveiled undersea capabilities, including what it called a Sinpo C-class ballistic missile submarine, the “Kim Gun Ok Hero Submarine,” which it claimed was its first “tactical nuclear attack submarine” when it was introduced in September 2024, according to state media.

South Korean maritime defense experts, including Hanyang University professor Moon Geun-sik, said the latest disclosure appears intended to showcase parallel development of what North Korea described as an 8,700-ton nuclear-powered strategic guided missile submarine – believed by analysts to be a ballistic missile submarine – along with an underwater unmanned system, believed to be an underwater drone.

KCNA said Kim called for a “qualitative leap” in maritime nuclear forces and described nuclear-powered submarines as a core pillar of North Korea’s nuclear deterrent.

Experts said North Korea’s claims about a “threat” from South Korea diverge from how Seoul has described its own debate. Moon and Jeong Seong-jang, deputy director at the Sejong Institute, said South Korea’s discussion has not been framed around nuclear armament or preemptive strikes. They said it has been presented as a defensive option to support longer submerged operations and covert tracking to counter North Korea’s nuclear and submarine-launched ballistic missile threats.

North Korea experts also say Pyongyang has pursued sea-based missile capabilities in recent years, including efforts they describe as adapting the KN-23 short-range ballistic missile into a sea-based short-range submarine-launched ballistic missile and conducting an underwater test launch from a new 3,000-ton diesel-electric submarine.

Analysts said Kim’s remarks amount to political framing meant to discredit South Korea’s nuclear submarine discussion while rationalizing North Korea’s strategic weapons development. They said North Korea has steadily unveiled intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and tactical nuclear weapons and is now presenting nuclear-powered submarines as a further step in that progression, with an eye toward both internal cohesion and external pressure.

Attention has also focused on the suspected construction site. Experts reviewing the newly released video and images alongside past satellite analysis pointed to shipyard facilities in the Sinpo area of South Hamgyong Province as the most likely location.

Sinpo is widely viewed by analysts as North Korea’s primary hub for submarine and submarine-launched ballistic missile activity, with infrastructure and specialized personnel linked to construction and testing, including launch test facilities and underwater launch barges.

Some experts urged caution about North Korea’s technical capacity to field and operate an 8,700-ton nuclear-powered submarine, noting it would require reliable reactor miniaturization and shielding, radiation safety and a fuel cycle and maintenance system that can support long-term operations. Jeong and other analysts said it remains unclear whether North Korea has achieved those capabilities on a stable basis.

Still, analysts said the strategic impact can be felt regardless of the project’s maturity. Once North Korea publicly declares a nuclear-powered submarine program, they said, it reduces ambiguity and can heighten instability in the maritime environment around the Korean Peninsula.

Experts said Seoul should avoid being drawn into North Korea’s rhetorical framing while recognizing that sea-based nuclear and missile threats are becoming more entrenched. They said South Korea’s nuclear-powered submarine discussion should be refined as a defensive option within international norms and alliance cooperation and paired with broader maritime deterrence steps, including underwater surveillance, anti-submarine warfare and unmanned systems.

KCNA also reported Thursday that Kim reviewed the progress of what it described as newly developed underwater weapons and outlined plans tied to naval force reorganization and the creation of new units.

Analysts said that while Kim’s statement about South Korea’s nuclear submarine push was directed at Seoul, the broader objective was to justify North Korea’s own strategic weapons advancement. They said South Korea should separate principle from reality in its response and focus on capability building and international legitimacy rather than mirror rhetoric.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

The setting looked almost cozy: Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and a podcast host seated inside her home in two comfy chairs, talking about President Trump, ICE raids, public schools and the Palisades fire.

The recording session inside the library at Getty House, the official mayor’s residence, lasted an hour. Once it ended, the two shook hands and the room broke into applause.

Then, the mayor kept talking — and let it rip.

Bass gave a blunt assessment of the emergency response to the Palisades and Eaton fires. “Both sides botched it,” she said.

She didn’t offer specifics on the Palisades. But on the Eaton fire, she pointed to the lack of evacuation alerts in west Altadena, where all but one of the 19 deaths occurred.

“They didn’t tell people they were on fire,” she said to Matt Welch, host of “The Fifth Column” podcast.

The mayor’s informal remarks, which lasted around four minutes, came at the tail end of a 66-minute video added to “The Fifth Column’s” YouTube channel last month. In recent weeks, it was replaced by a shorter, 62-minute version — one that omits her more freewheeling final thoughts.

The exact date of the interview was not immediately clear. The video premiered on Nov. 25, according to the podcast’s YouTube channel.

Welch declined to say whether Bass asked for the end of the video to be cut. He had no comment on why the final four minutes can’t be found on the YouTube version of the podcast.

“We’re not going to be talking about any of that right now,” he told The Times before hanging up.

Bass’ team confirmed that her office asked for the final minutes of the video to be removed. “The interview had clearly ended and they acknowledged that when they took it down,” the mayor’s team said Tuesday in an email.

In the longer video, Bass also talked about being blamed for the handling of the Eaton fire in Altadena, which is in unincorporated Los Angeles County, outside of L.A. city limits. Altadena is represented by L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, not Bass.

“No one goes after the Board of Supervisors,” Bass said on the original 66-minute video. “I’m responsible for everything.”

Bass, in an interview with The Times, said she made those remarks after the podcast was over, during what she called a “casual conversation” — a situation she called “unfortunate.” Nevertheless, she stood by her take, saying she has made similar pronouncements about the emergency response “numerous times.”

In the case of the city, Bass said, the fire department failed to pre-deploy to the Palisades and require firefighters to stay for an extra shift, as The Times first reported in January. In Altadena, she said, residents did not receive timely notices to evacuate.

“The city and the county did a lot of things that we would look back at and say was very unfortunate,” she told The Times.

Bass was out of the country on a diplomatic mission to Ghana when the Palisades fire first broke out on Jan. 7. When she returned, she was unsteady in her handling of questions surrounding the emergency response.

Both the response and the rebuilding effort since the fire have created an opening for Bass’ rivals. Real estate developer Rick Caruso, who lost to her in 2022, is now weighing another run for mayor — and has been a harsh critic of her performance.

Former L.A. schools superintendent Austin Beutner, who is running against Bass in the June 2 primary election, called the mayor’s use of the word “botched” a “stunning admission of failure on behalf of the mayor” on “the biggest crisis Los Angeles has faced in a generation.”

“She’s admitting that she failed her constituents,” Beutner said.

Bass isn’t the first L.A. elected official to use the word “botched” in connection with the Palisades fire, which destroyed thousands of homes and left 12 people dead. Last month, during a meeting on the effort to rebuild in the Palisades, City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez said that Bass’ office had mishandled the recovery, at least in the first few months.

“Let’s be honest,” she told one of the mayor’s staffers. “You guys have to be the first to acknowledge that your office has botched the first few months of this recovery.”

Bass has defended her handling of that work, pointing to an accelerated debris removal process and her own emergency orders cutting red tape for rebuilding projects. The recovery, she told Welch, is moving faster than many other major wildfires, including the 2023 Lahaina fire in Hawaii.

“It’s important to state the facts, especially because in this environment … there’s a number of people out there who have been very, very deliberate in spreading misinformation,” she said.

Bass, who formally launched her reelection campaign over the weekend, has been giving interviews to a growing list of nontraditional outlets. She recently fielded questions on “Naked Lunch with Phil Rosenthal + David Wild.” She also went on “Big Boy’s Off Air Leadership Series” to discuss the Palisades fire and several other issues.

On “Big Boy’s Off Air,” Bass said she was in conflict with then-Fire Chief Kristin Crowley over her handling of the fire. When she ousted Crowley in February, she cited the LAFD’s failure to properly deploy resources ahead of the fierce winds. She also accused Crowley of refusing to participate in an after-action report on the fire.

Bass told Big Boy, the host of the program, that firefighters “were sent home and they shouldn’t have been.”

She also called the revelation that the Jan. 1 Lachman fire reignited days later, causing the Palisades fire, “shocking.” The Times has reported that an LAFD battalion chief ordered firefighters to leave the burn area, despite signs that the fire wasn’t fully extinguished.

Bass said that had she known of the danger facing the region in early January, she wouldn’t have gone to Long Beach, let alone Ghana.

Asked where blame should be assigned, Bass said: “At the end of the day, I’m the mayor, OK? But I am not a firefighter.”

On “The Fifth Column,” Bass spent much of the hour discussing the effect of federal immigration raids on Los Angeles and the effort to rewrite the City Charter to improve the city’s overall governmental structure. She also described the “overwhelming trauma” experienced by fire victims in the Palisades and elsewhere.

“To lose your home, it’s not just the structure. You lost everything inside there. You lost your memories,” she said. “You lost your sense of community, your sense of belonging. You know, it’s overwhelming grief and it’s collective grief, because then you have thousands of people that are experiencing this too.”

In the final four minutes, Welch told Bass that he viewed the Palisades fire as inevitable, given the ferocious strength of the Santa Ana winds that day. “As someone who grew up here, that fire was going to happen,” he said.

“Right,” Bass responded.

Welch continued: “If it’s 100 mile an hour winds and it’s dry, someone’s going to sneeze and there’s going to be a fire.”

“But if you look at the response in Palisades and the county,” Bass replied, “neither side —”

The mayor paused for a moment. “Both sides botched it.”

When word came of Rob Reiner’s senseless death, America fell into familiar rites of mourning and remembrance. A waterfall of tributes poured in from the twin worlds — Hollywood and politics — that the actor, director and liberal activist inhabited.

Through the shock and haze, before all but the sketchiest details were known, President Trump weighed in as well, driving by his diarrhetic compulsion to muse on just about every passing event, as though he was elected not to govern but to serve as America’s commentator in chief.

Trump’s response, fairly shimmying on Reiner’s grave as he wrongly attributed his death to an act of political vengeance, managed to plumb new depths of heartlessness and cruelty; more than a decade into his acrid emergence as a political force, the president still manages to stoop to surprise.

But as vile and tasteless as Trump’s self-pitying statement was — Reiner, he averred, was a victim of “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and, essentially, got what he deserved — it also pointed out a singular truism of his vengeful residency in the Oval Office.

In recent decades, the nation has had a president who lied and deceived to cover up his personal vices. Another who plunged the country into a costly and needless war. A third whose willfulness and vanity led him to overstay his time, hurting his party and America as well.

Still, each acted as though he was a president of all the people, not just those who voted him into office, contributed lavishly to his campaign or blindly cheered his every move, however reckless or ill-considered.

As Trump has repeatedly made clear, he sees the world in black-and-white, red-versus-blue, us-versus-them.

There are the states he carried that deserve federal funding. The voters whose support entitles them to food aid and other benefits. The sycophants bestowed with medals and presidential commendations.

And then there are his critics and political opponents — those he proudly and admittedly hates — whose suffering and even demise he openly savors.

When Charlie Kirk was killed, Trump ordered flags be flown at half-staff. He flew to Arizona to headline his memorial service. His vice president, JD Vance, suggested people should be fired for showing any disrespect toward the late conservative provocateur.

By noteworthy contrast, when a gunman killed Minnesota’s Democratic former House speaker, Melissa Hortman, Trump couldn’t be bothered with even a simple act of grace. Asked if he’d called to offer his condolences to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a personal friend of Hortman, Trump responded, “Why waste time?”

This is not normal, much less humane.

This is not politics as usual, or someone rewarding allies and seeking to disadvantage the political opposition, as all presidents have done. This is the nation’s chief executive using the immense powers of his office and the world’s largest, most resonant megaphone to deliver retribution, ruin people’s lives, inflict misery — and revel in the pain.

There were the usual denunciations of Trump’s callous and contemptuous response to Reiner’s stabbing death.

“I’d expect to hear something like this from a drunk guy at a bar, not the president of the United States,” said Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, who is retiring rather than seeking reelection in 2026. (Which may be why he was so candid and spoke so bracingly.)

But this time, the criticisms did not just come from the typical anti-Trump chorus, or heterodox Republicans like Bacon and MAGA-stalwart-turned-taunter Marjorie Taylor Greene. Even some of the president’s longest and loudest advocates felt compelled to speak out.

“This is a dreadful thing to say about a man who just got murdered by his troubled son,” British broadcaster Piers Morgan posted on X. “Delete it, Mr. President.”

More telling, though, was the response from the Republican Party’s leadership.

“I don’t have much more to say about it, other than it’s a tragedy, and my sympathies and prayers go out to the Reiner family and to their friends,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told CNN when asked about Trump’s response. House Speaker Mike Johnson responded in a similarly nonresponsive vein.

Clearly, the see-and-hear-no-evil impulse remains strong in the upper echelons of the GOP — at least until more election returns show the price Republicans are paying as Trump keeps putting personal vendettas ahead of voters’ personal finances.

One of the enduring reasons supporters say they back the president is Trump’s supposed honesty. (Never mind the many voluminously documented lies he has told on a near-constant basis.)

Honesty, in this sense, means saying things that a more temperate and careful politician would never utter, and it’s an odd thing to condone in the nation’s foremost leader. Those with even a modicum of caring and compassion, who would never tell a friend they’re ugly or call a neighbor stupid — and who expect the same respect and decency in return — routinely ignore or explain away such casual cruelty when it comes from this president.

Those who insist Trump can do no wrong, who defend his every foul utterance or engage in but-what-about relativism to minimize the import, need not remain in his constant thrall.

When Trump steps so egregiously over a line, when his malice is so extravagant and spitefulness so manifest — as it was when he mocked Reiner in death — then, even the most fervent of the president’s backers should call him out.

Do it, and reclaim a little piece of your humanity.

Months before his slaying, Rob Reiner talked about the power of forgiveness after the “horrific” assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.

“Horror. An absolute horror,” the director, actor and political activist said when asked about the shooting in a TV interview with Piers Morgan. “I unfortunately saw the video of it and it’s beyond belief what happened to him, and that should never happen to anybody. I don’t care what your political beliefs are. That’s not acceptable.”

Contrast that with President Trump’s reaction to the killing of Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, who on Sunday were found stabbed to death in their Brentwood home. Their son, Nick Reiner, has been arrested in connection with the slayings.

“Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, 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 said in a social media post.

“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!”

How is that anyone’s initial reaction to a tragic slaying, let alone an official comment from a sitting U.S. president? That’s a rhetorical question, of course. It’s just another Monday at Trump’s White House.

I’d be screaming into the void if I were to use the rest of this column to argue that the president is not only off his rocker but also has tumbled down the stairs and is in the foyer, mumbling something about speedboats, piggies and ballrooms. In his race to the bottom, he’s broken through the floor. Now we’re in the Trump Upside Down, where empathy and decency are negative attributes.

Even Republican lawmakers were compelled to speak out against their feared leader. “This is a family tragedy, not about politics or political enemies,” said Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in response to Trump’s post.

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) wrote on X, “Regardless of one’s political views, no one should be subjected to violence, let alone at the hands of their own son. It’s a horrible tragedy that should engender sympathy and compassion from everyone in our country, period.”

Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said it short and sweet to CNN’s Jake Tapper: “I’d expect to hear something like this from a drunk guy at a bar, not the President of the United States. Can the President be presidential?”

No, he cannot. When given the chance on Monday to appear leader-like during a White House news conference, Trump doubled down on his dislike for Reiner, saying he “wasn’t a fan” and that the director “was a deranged person.”

Translation: Reiner was a Trump critic and the president has skin so thin it’s practically rice paper at this point. But the filmmaker’s social conscience was evident in everything he did, starting with his role as “All in the Family’s” liberal, hippie son-in law to conservative crank Archie Bunker. It was the 1970s, and Meathead (a.k.a. Michael) consistently called out Archie’s racism, bigotry and sexism on the weekly sitcom. Archie’s rants are now the ugly stuff embraced by feckless politicians and attention-seeking influencers, but back then, his tirades against “queers” and “coloreds” represented old prejudices that needed to be shed if the country were to move forward. Show creator Norman Lear made the ugliness funny by using Meathead to expose Archie’s ignorance. Even back then, Reiner was poking the bear.

Reiner was a staunch critic of Trump and other leaders and movements that sought to curtail the freedoms that were previously believed to be enshrined in the Constitution — until MAGA began shredding them one by one. The comedian was an advocate for democratic ideals, Democratic candidates, same-sex marriage, early childhood education, and government transparency, spearheading California’s Proposition 10 (First 5) to fund early development programs via tobacco taxes. He also helped overturn Proposition 8, California’s brief ban on gay marriage.

Reiner’s understanding that it takes all kinds was evident in his work. He was a director with range, as they say in the industry, helming a string of films that became cultural touchstones, starting with 1984’s groundbreaking mockumentary “This Is Spinal Tap,” a satire that forever changed the language around heavy-metal decibel levels (“Crank it to 11!”). Then came 1986’s coming-of-age drama “Stand by Me,” 1989’s seminal romantic comedy “When Harry Met Sally…,” and the terrifying, psychological horror-thriller, 1990’s “Misery,” about an injured novelist held captive by his biggest fan.

Some of his films directly addressed the inequity and violence that Reiner fought so hard to correct in his lifetime. “Ghosts of Mississippi” explored the 1994 trial of Byron De La Beckwith, a white supremacist accused of the 1963 assassination of civil rights activist Medgar Evers. And Reiner’s 2017 drama “Shock and Awe” told the true story of a team of reporters who countered the Bush administration’s justification for invading Iraq in 2003 when they found evidence of falsified intelligence about weapons of mass destruction.

Though it was already acceptable to speak out against that Middle Eastern war, in the same week of the film’s release, he caught flak for signing a petition led by Palestinian director Annemarie Jacir condemning Trump’s 2017 decision formally recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Reiner, who was Jewish, told the National that Trump had “no concept of geopolitical events or how things are interconnected. There was no consideration that went into this decision, no outreach to allies in the Arab world, or even the non-Arab world to see what the impact of something like this is.”

Reiner saw tragedy and sadness in the death of Kirk because he was able to empathize with the loss of life, no matter the difference of opinion.