The Week Magazine April 25, 2025

American conservatives have long compared left-wing campus zealots to the Red Guards of China’s Cultural Revolution, given to intolerance and empty sloganeering. There may have been some truth to that, but now it is the Trump administration that seems to be following the Cultural Revolution’s path. While we associate the Cultural Revolution with images of students dragging out their bloodied professors, that period was soon followed by the closing of the universities as Chairman Mao sought to stamp out the remnants of pre-Communist culture. Now, similarly, the culture war of the Right has come, with full force, to our universities. The presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University resigned after a disastrously out-of-touch performance in Congress at the end of 2023. Republicans then had legitimate points about…

What happened A potential constitutional crisis loomed this week, as a federal judge accused the Trump administration of ignoring a Supreme Court order to pursue the release of an asylum seeker from a notoriously brutal El Salvador megaprison. In a unanimous ruling, the nation’s highest court largely affirmed U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis’ order that it must “facilitate” El Salvador’s return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Maryland father of three, sheet metal worker, and university student who was detained and deported without a hearing. Chief Justice John Roberts, however, gave Trump some wiggle room, saying that Xinis must defer to Trump’s authority in “foreign affairs” and could not dictate his dealings with El Salvador. In response, Attorney General Pam Bondi said “facilitate” meant only the U.S. would “provide…

Xinis’ discovery order “sets up a high-stakes sprint,” said Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein in Politico, during which Trump officials may be forced to reveal much about their arrangement with El Salvador. But “the Justice Department appears likely to throw up a series of legal obstacles,” including claims of confidentiality and national security. If that happens, expect the case to boomerang “back to SCOTUS,” said Jonathan V. Last in The Bulwark. Surely, as our authoritarian president seeks to establish his dominion over the courts, Chief Justice John Roberts can see “what Trump is playing at.” So, does he gamble on standing up to Trump? If “SCOTUS pushes all in on this case and loses, then it can no longer even pretend to have authority over the executive,” rendering the…

What happened The tariff war between the U.S. and China intensified this week as both sides dug in amid rising fears of a global recession. The Trump administration’s levies on Chinese imports hit a staggering 145 percent, and China countered with levies of 125 percent on U.S. goods. After saying repeatedly there would be no carve-outs, the administration announced an exception for electronic goods including smartphones, laptop computers, and modems, which face only 20 percent tariffs. But Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick then said additional tariffs on electronics would be announced “in a month or two.” President Trump signaled he would also impose new tariffs on semiconductors and other technologies; he has already imposed stricter limits on the transfer of AI technology to China. The dollar hit a three-year low—dropping…

■ The staff at a Haverhill, Mass., McDonald’s were skeptical when a stranger left a wad of several thousand dollars to pay for everyone’s food until the money ran out. But the money paid for 356 meals after police confirmed that the cash wasn’t counterfeit. “We have customers regularly offer to pay for the car behind them, but that’s just one order,” said Christine Yee, daughter of the McDonald’s franchise owner. “We hope everyone who got a meal for free today passes that good feeling of caring forward.” ■ Mommy, a roughly 100-year-old Galápagos tortoise, became an actual mother for the first time when she had four hatchlings at the Philadelphia Zoo over a few days in February and March. The brood of tennis-ball-size babies comes from 16 eggs…

President Trump “fired a warning shot from the edge of autocracy” last week, said Thom Hartmann in The New Republic. The U.S. moved much closer to becoming a “police state” when Trump signed executive memoranda directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate public comments made by two former officials: Christopher Krebs, a former top cybersecurity official in the first Trump administration who debunked baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen, and Miles Taylor, a former Homeland Security official who wrote an anonymous newspaper column and book criticizing Trump. They’re “public servants whose only crime” was speaking truth to power—but a vengeful Trump now wants them prosecuted to send “a chilling message to current and future whistleblowers: ‘Cross me, and you’ll pay.’” Trump is no longer simply “using the…