By Robert Fantina, World BEYOND War, December 29, 2025

Well, Donald Trump has once again demonstrated his hypocrisy for all the world to see; this is hardly news, but it’s interesting to see that hypocrisy in its various manifestations.

In the last several days, while there have been numerous tragedies (we must never overlook the ongoing genocide in Palestine), there are three that this writer will spotlight today.  But more than the tragedies themselves, it is the reaction of the president of the United  States to which this writer wishes to draw the readers’ attention.

On December 13, two students were killed and nine others injured in a shooting at Brown University in Rhode Island. It was the fourth fatal shooting at a U.S. university in 2025, although there have been at least 75 school shootings in the U.S. this year. When such tragedies occur, as they often do in the gun-crazy U.S.A., the U.S. president generally steps into his role as ‘consoler-in-chief’, offering comforting, albeit meaningless, words to the victims, survivors and the nation.

Not so Donald Trump: his words to the victims of the Brown shooting, after praising the university, included these: “Things can happen, so to the nine injured, get well fast. And to the families of those two who are no longer with us, I pay my deepest regards and respects from the United States of America. Thank you very much. It’s a very important thing to say. And we mean it.”

Of course, there was nothing about gun control, or the fact that just about anyone in the U.S. who wants a firearm can get one, or multiple firearms, if that is their wish. Trump’s words to the survivors were not ‘a very important thing to say’; they were empty, hollow and uncaring.

Contrast this to Trump’s response to the killing of two soldiers and a civilian interpreter in Syria on December 13, the same day as the shooting at Brown University. He didn’t say that ‘things can happen’, and that it was ‘very important’ to pay his ‘deepest regards and respects’. No, he said that there would be ‘very serious retaliation’.

Before we move to the third tragedy, it is important to review a few pertinent facts about the first two. At Brown University, students were doing what it is students do at universities: learn, study, socialize with friends. One would think that, although ‘things can happen’, if the ‘things’ are shootings, they should be unlikely to happen in an academic environment.

Considering the killing of three people in Syria, we must remember that that is a nation that has been war-torn for years, at least partly because of U.S. interference; we must not forget the infamous memo from James P. Rubin, a ‘diplomat’ in the State Department, to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, encouraging the U.S. to “… topple the Assad regime so as to weaken Iran and allay the fears of Israel….” Does it not seem reasonable to assume that soldiers and non-military personnel deployed to such an unstable and violent area would be at risk of being shot? The people of Syria are not interested in becoming another vassal state of the United States. “Things can happen”, as Trump said about the shooting at Brown, but the shooting of soldiers in a war zone, where they had no business being anyway, cannot be viewed with surprise. Yet Trump is willing to take action when the shooting involves soldiers working towards the destabilization of a Middle-Eastern nation, but not so much when the shooting is of students in the United States.

So much for his role as ‘consoler-in-chief’.

Now we must discuss the killing of Hollywood producer Rob Reiner, who first gained fame in the 1970’s, staring in the iconic television show ‘All in the Family’. In his later years, he continued to support liberal causes, and has occasionally publicly criticized the notoriously thin-skinned Donald Trump. Stepping once again into his role of ‘consoler-in-chief’, Trump posted the following on Truth Social:

“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….”

“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.”

The reader will not be disappointed to learn that this writer is about to dissect that ridiculous statement.

There is no information that Rob Reiner was either ‘tortured’ or ‘struggling’. By all accounts, he was happily married and continued to engage in successful creative pursuits. Additionally, there is no evidence whatsoever that his murder was caused by “…his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS.” Like many public figures, including many associated with Hollywood, Mr. Reiner was critical of Donald Trump. He did not seem, by any measure, to be obsessed with Trump.

There is, further, nothing to suggest that he drove any of his associates crazy by criticizing the U.S. president. And lastly, it is beyond laughable that Trump said that his administration had “surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness.”

The evidence to date indicates that Mr. Reiner and his wife were killed by their son, who has a history of substance abuse issues. This makes their deaths a family tragedy, unconnected to politics in any way. That Trump wants to somehow suggest that they were assassinated due to their criticism of him, only demonstrates, once again, his narcissism; whatever happens in the world, even a family tragedy, must somehow be related to him.

So there we have it. A shooting at a U.S. university occurred simply because “things can happen”. The killing of military personnel in Syria, however, is cause for “serious retaliation”. And the murder of a prominent Hollywood producer is, of course, a direct result of his criticism of Donald Trump.

The U.S. government is able to prevent ‘things happening’ on university campuses, high schools and elementary schools, when those ‘things’ are shootings, but it chooses not to. The old ‘thoughts and prayers’ response is always good enough. It could also prevent the killing of U.S. soldiers by not deploying them to places where the U.S. is attempting to thwart the will of the people and establish a puppet government. But how would that assist U.S. geopolitical goals of world control, possession of all the planet’s natural resources, and establishing governments willing to repress populations that displease the U.S?

The words quoted above are from the ‘leader of the free world’, a phrase that has always been a farce. U.S. voters elected this; it is too late for regrets, but not too late to try to undo some of the damage, by electing Trump opponents in the 2026 midterms. Will U.S. voters once again vote against their own best interests? Only time will tell, but this writer, a U.S. voter living in Canada, is not optimistic about the foreseeable future of the United States.

The post Trump and Killings: Different Responses for Different Victims appeared first on World BEYOND War.

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