The Week Magazine December 5, 2025

President Trump was gifted a “Get Out of Jail Free” card last year by the Supreme Court. How lovely for him. But as he wields the military and Justice Department as personal tools, his immunity does not protect those who carry out possibly illegal orders. For good reason, service members in the U.S. Southern Command are reportedly deeply concerned as they assassinate more than 80 alleged drug smugglers without congressional authorization or solid legal justification. In fact, NBC News reported last week, a senior military lawyer concluded that these extrajudicial executions would be illegal and could expose service members to later prosecution. The military lawyer was overruled by Trump’s Justice Department, leaving service members feeling “profound legal confusion,” says David French in The New York Times. (See Talking Points, p.17.)…

What happened After eliminating multiple Russian demands from a peace plan backed by President Trump, U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators agreed this week in Geneva on the framework for a deal to end the Ukraine war—but Russia’s acceptance appeared unlikely. The framework is a heavily revised version of the 28-point peace plan that emerged last week from a secret meeting between White House special envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev. That plan set off a firestorm when it was leaked, with Ukrainian and European officials and many U.S. lawmakers criticizing it as a surrender requiring no concessions from Moscow. It would have forced Ukraine to cede not only Russian-occupied regions but territory it still controls in the Donbas, reduced and capped the size of its…

■ Peter Wollny was a graduate student in 1992 when he came across two unsigned music manuscripts in a Belgian library. They were styled and constructed similarly to that of a young Johann Sebastian Bach, but Wollny kept his hunches to himself. After years of musical detective work, Wollny, now leading the Bach-Archiv Leipzig, finally confirmed Bach had composed them. Wollny officially unveiled the pieces last week, and they were performed at the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig for the first time in at least 300 years. ■ Edward LaRue, 82, and Marlene Parsons, 78, took the marriage plunge last month nearly two years after they met in a pool aerobics class at a YMCA in Illinois. Parsons said they “splashed each other in the pool” and romance followed. But…

What happened The U.S. this week intensified its pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, with the Trump administration designating the authoritarian leader a member of a foreign terrorist organization and President Trump approving plans for covert CIA operations inside the country. The State Department’s classification of the Cártel de los Soles—a loose collection of regime figures, including Maduro, with ties to the drug trade—as a terrorist outfit could allow the administration to order military strikes on Venezuela without seeking congressional approval. It “opens up a lot of new options,” said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. People briefed on the matter told The New York Times that those options likely include covert measures—such as sabotage or psychological operations inside Venezuela—intended to prepare the battlefield and encourage Maduro to step down. Gen.…

What happened President Trump’s retribution campaign against his political foes suffered a major loss this week, after a federal judge dismissed criminal charges against former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Comey, who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, was indicted in September for allegedly lying to Congress, and James, who brought a civil fraud case against Trump in 2022, was indicted in October for alleged mortgage fraud. Both have pleaded not guilty. But Judge Cameron McGowan Currie ruled that the prosecutor who brought the charges, Lindsey Halligan, was illegally appointed to her role as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Because of “Halligan’s defective appointment,” said Currie, a Bill Clinton appointee, all of her prosecutions “must be set aside.”…

Our “depressing vaccine future” just came into focus, said Jessica Grose in The New York Times. After 10 already turbulent months as Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismayed mainstream scientists and doctors last week when he changed the Centers for Disease Control’s website to promote his long-held personal belief that childhood vaccines cause autism. The headline of the relevant webpage still reads “vaccines do not cause autism,” but with an asterisk and a footnote stating that “the claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.” This was RFK Jr.’s scurrilous way of evading his promise during his confirmation hearings that he would keep the CDC’s statement on vaccines and autism.…