The Week Magazine August 15, 2025

Our collective grasp on reality seems to be slipping. Millions of TikTok users last week shared or favorited a joyful video of bunnies bouncing on a trampoline in the middle of the night. The original poster said he’d captured this adorable footage on a backyard security camera, but online sleuths soon spotted signs that the remarkably real-looking video was in fact AI-generated. Savvy young TikTokers who once thought that AI slop would fool only their parents were shocked to discover that they too could fall for fakery. “Now I feel like I’m gonna be one of those old people that get scammed,” said one 25-year-old influencer. That sense of not being able to trust your own eyes is spreading fast. Online gardening forums are now littered with AI-created photos of…

What happened President Trump doubled down on his use of tariffs as an economic and foreign policy tool this week, even as a slew of new data indicated that his global trade war is taking a toll on U.S. businesses and households. A day after Trump signed an executive order last week imposing import taxes of up to 41% on dozens of trade partners, the Bureau of Labor Statistics issued a sobering jobs report that showed the country added 73,000 jobs in July, far short of the 104,000 economists expected. Initial jobs estimates for May and June were also revised sharply downward, leaving total hiring for the second quarter at 106,000—the worst non-pandemic quarter for job growth since 2010. Trump responded by firing BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, claiming without evidence…

As Trump attempts to “unilaterally remake global trade,” lawsuits are moving through the courts that “could grind his tariff regime to a halt,” said Grayson Logue in The Dispatch. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit last week heard oral arguments in a case challenging Trump’s legal standing to impose tariffs, a power the Constitution grants to Congress. Brought by five small businesses and a dozen Democratic-led states, the suit argues that Trump exceeded his constitutional power in issuing tariffs under a 1977 act that empowers the president to use economic sanctions “to deal with foreign threats and emergencies.” Many of the panel’s 11 judges “appeared skeptical” of Trump’s argument, said Elisabeth Buchwald in CNN.com. Several questioned the administration’s claim that trade deficits constitute an emergency—we’ve “had trade…

What happened A fight over redistricting in Texas went nationwide this week, with Texas Democrats fleeing their state to block a vote on new electoral maps and blue states vowing to forge ahead with their own partisan gerrymanders. While congressional districts are typically redrawn once a decade after the census, President Trump asked Texas Republicans to do so now, hoping to deliver additional GOP seats for the House in next year’s midterms. “I got the highest vote in the history of Texas,” Trump said, speaking of the 2024 election, “and we are entitled to five more seats.” To prevent Republicans from mustering a quorum for the vote, more than 50 Democratic state legislators hightailed it out of the state—heading for blue strongholds like Illinois and New York, beyond the reach…

■ When volunteer EMT Ed Levien joined the Bethesda–Chevy Chase Rescue Squad in Maryland in 2013, he stood out among the mainly 20- and 30-year-olds: He was 65 and already retired. Over the next 12 years, Levien responded to more than 3,300 emergency calls, including delivering a baby and treating a ruptured artery. Finally feeling his age at 76, Levien retired again in April and is now training new EMTs. “He was given another lease on life,” said his wife, Robin. “And it didn’t go to waste.” ■ Clad in goggles and a life jacket, Faith, a 14-year-old pit bull, surfed some gnarly waves at the annual World Dog Surfing Championships in August, where more than a dozen pooches were cheered on by thousands of spectators. Riding alone or alongside…

The firing of Erika McEntarfer marks “a new stage in the attempted authoritarian takeover of American democracy,” said William Kristol in The Bulwark. Until last week, McEntarfer was commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the nonpartisan body tasked with the dry work of gathering data on the number of Americans in employment. But after the BLS released figures showing anemic job growth in July, and revised figures for May and June down by a combined 258,000 jobs, Trump fired McEntarfer, accusing her in a social media post of having “RIGGED” the numbers “to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.” William Beach, McEntarfer’s Trump-appointed predecessor, called the firing “totally groundless” and a “dangerous precedent” that would undermine trust in government reports. More worrying is the precedent Trump is following,…