Democratic lawmakers and pundits are unleashing on President Donald Trump for his social media post celebrating the death of Robert Mueller, the former FBI director and special counsel who oversaw the 2016 investigation into Russian election interference, calling it “disgusting” and “insane.”
Mueller died Friday night at 81, his family said in a statement to the Associated Press on Saturday. A cause of death has not yet been disclosed, though two people familiar with the situation told MS NOW that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
Hours after Mueller’s family asked in the statement that their “privacy be respected,” the president wrote on his Truth Social platform, “Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!”
The post drew fiery responses from legions of Democratic politicians and media personalities, who decried its callousness and mourned Trump’s ongoing indifference to the presidential decorum of the past.
“I expect every Republican who was outraged at people for celebrating Charlie Kirk’s death to immediately condemn Trump for saying, ‘I’m glad he’s dead’ about Robert Mueller,” wrote liberal political influencer Harry Sisson on X. “This is disgusting.”
Many Trump supporters are defending him, however, arguing that Mueller spread “the most destructive lies of the 21st Century” and was “a piece of garbage” for his so-called “persecution” of Trump. Other conservatives condemned the post.
“This is the kind of stuff Trump does that makes people not just oppose him but hate him,” wrote Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume. “There was no need to say anything.”
Susan Walsh/Associated Press
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) called Mueller “a true public servant” in his social media tribute, writing: “Yet the President of the United States disgustingly celebrates Mueller’s death simply because he exposed Trump’s efforts to steal the 2016 election.”
Former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan argued that far too many journalists are reporting on Trump’s post without any detraction, writing, “Very few acknowledgments of how insane and inappropriate it is for the president to respond like this.”
He added, “Imagine their response if it was [former President Joe] Biden.”
Below are more responses to Trump’s Mueller post:
