Dec 17, 2025
Editor: A selection from Mr. Stephens’ self-serving ‘Victimhood Narrative’ !
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Markets will not be moved, or brigades redeployed, or history shifted, because Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner were found stabbed to death on Sunday in their home in Los Angeles, allegedly at the hands of their troubled son Nick.
But this is an appalling human tragedy and a terrible national loss. Reiner’s movies, including “Stand by Me,” “The Princess Bride” and “When Harry Met Sally…,” are landmarks in the inner lives of millions of people; I can still quote by heart dialogue and song lyrics from his 1984 classic, “This Is Spinal Tap.” Until last week, he and Michele remained creative forces as well as one of Hollywood’s great real-life love stories. Their liberal politics, though mostly not my own, were honorable and sincere.
To which our ogre in chief had this to say on social media:
“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, 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, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!”
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…the Reiners and so many other Americans trying to hold on to a sense of national decency. Good people and good nations do not stomp on the grief of others.
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As Trump was unloading on Reiner, James Woods, probably the most outspoken Trump supporter in Hollywood, lovingly remembered Reiner as a “godsend in my life” who saved his acting career when it was at a low point 30 years ago.
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“I think Rob Reiner is a great patriot,” Woods said Monday on Fox News. “Do I agree with some of, or many of, his ideas on how that patriotism should be enacted, to celebrate the America that we both love?
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The Reiner murders took place on the same weekend that an assailant, still at large, murdered two students at Brown University, and when an antisemitic massacre at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, gave every Jew in America a pit-of-our-stomachs sense that something like it may soon happen here again, as it did in Pittsburgh seven years ago.
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… Brian Thompson was murdered in Manhattan by an alleged assailant who is now a folk hero to the deranged reaches of the left.
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It’s a country that feels like a train coming off the rails, led by a driver whose own derangement was again laid bare in that contemptible assault on the Reiners, may their memories be for a blessing.
Syrian-Born Australian Who Tackled Bondi Gunman Hailed as Hero
Video of Ahmed el Ahmed disarming one of the gunmen has gone viral, and officials around the world have hailed his bravery.
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Bystander Who Tackled Sydney Gunman Is Hailed as a ‘Hero’
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The parents of Ahmed el Ahmed, 43, said their son was brave and felt compelled to intervene to tackle one of the gunmen in Sunday’s mass shooting at Bondi Beach in which at least 15 people were killed.CreditCredit…AuBC, via Associated Press
By Amelia Nierenberg and Yan Zhuang
Yan Zhuang reported from St. George Hospital in Sydney, Australia, where Mr. el Ahmed is a patient.
Dec. 15, 2025
Ahmed el Ahmed crouched behind a car in a Sydney parking lot on Sunday, feet away from one of the two gunmen who had just turned a beachside Hanukkah celebration into a massacre.
Then, sirens wailing in the background, Mr. el Ahmed jumped into action.
Even as the gunman fired a shot in a different direction, Mr. el Ahmed ran toward the assailant and pounced on him from behind. The two men tussled for several seconds before Mr. el Ahmed wrested a long firearm from the man, who fell to the ground. As Mr. el Ahmed pointed the weapon at him, the assailant got up and stumbled away.
Mr. el Ahmed — whose actions were caught on a video that has been verified by The New York Times and who was identified on Monday by Australian officials — is being praised as a hero in one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in Australian history.
In the aftermath of the mass shooting, which left the country and its Jewish community reeling, Mr. el Ahmed’s bravery provided much-needed solace.
Mr. el Ahmed, a Syrian-born fruit seller, risked his life and likely prevented the massacre from being even worse, officials said.
“At the best of times, what we see is Australians coming together,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said at a news conference, referring to the risks that Mr. el Ahmed took, adding that he had been hospitalized with a “serious injury.” It was not immediately clear how he had been hurt.
Footage of Mr. el Ahmed’s intervention was shared widely across social media and even made its way into the White House, where President Trump called Mr. el Ahmed “a very, very brave person.”
Mr. el Ahmed is an Australian citizen who immigrated from Syria in 2006 and has two daughters, aged 3 and 6, his parents told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He had been drinking coffee with a friend near the beach when he heard gunshots, they added.
“He wasn’t thinking about the background of the people he’s saving, the people dying in the street,” Mr. el Ahmed’s father, Mohamed Fateh el Ahmed, told ABC. “He doesn’t discriminate between one nationality and another.”
Ahmed is a real-life hero. Last night, his incredible bravery no doubt saved countless lives when he disarmed a terrorist at enormous personal risk.
It was an honour to spend time with him just now and to pass on the thanks of people across NSW. pic.twitter.com/3xNBW8vxvZ— Chris Minns (@ChrisMinnsMP) December 15, 2025
Chris Minns, the premier of the state of New South Wales, who visited Mr. el Ahmed in the hospital, said he had “saved countless lives.” In a picture that Mr. Minns posted on social media, Mr. el Ahmed looks alert and appears to be partially upright and speaking.
A GoFundMe page that was set up to support Mr. el Ahmed has raised more than 1.4 million Australian dollars, or about $930,000 — including roughly $66,500 from Bill Ackman, the billionaire investor, according to the fund-raising company.
GoFundMe said in an email that it was working with the organizers of the page to “help ensure funds raised safely reach Ahmed and his family.”
At St. George Hospital, where Mr. el Ahmed was being treated, Talia Gill and her 10-year-old daughter, Georgie, said in an interview that they were leaving gifts and a letter for him. The attack struck close to home for Ms. Gill, who is Jewish and who had friends who were in Bondi when the shooting occurred.
Georgie said she wanted to tell Mr. el Ahmed, “Thank you so much for saving all those people you didn’t even know.” She added, “You’re probably the kindest person ever.”
Amelia Nierenberg is a Times reporter covering international news from London.
Yan Zhuang is a Times reporter in Seoul who covers breaking news.
A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 16, 2025, Section A, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: The Syrian-Born Fruit Vendor Who Tackled and Disarmed a Gunman. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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