The Week Magazine October 31, 2025

When American citizen Maria Greeley was stopped by ICE agents earlier this month, she was ready: She had her passport on her. Greeley knew ICE was combing Chicago and stopping people who, like her, looked Latino. Leaving her workplace one evening, she was indeed picked up. But her U.S. passport didn’t protect her from being arbitrarily detained, because the ICE agents decided it must be fake. She asked for the name and badge number of the man zip-tying her hands behind her back, but he simply sneered, “We don’t have to tell you anything.” A reporter texted White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt last week with a reasonable, easy question about the planned meeting (now canceled) between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin: Who picked Budapest as the meeting…

What happened Evidence mounted this week that the Trump administration was seeking regime change in Venezuela, as a U.S. counter-narcotics campaign that began with military strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats shifted toward the ouster of President Nicolás Maduro. Some 10,000 U.S. troops have been deployed to the Caribbean as part of a buildup involving at least eight Navy warships, 10 F-35 fighter jets, missile-loaded drones, a nuclear-powered attack submarine, and a floating base for special operations forces. While the administration’s official stance is that the buildup is part of a “war against narco-terrorism,” unnamed officials have told multiple news outlets that the real goal is the removal of leftist strongman Maduro. President Trump said he had cleared the CIA to pursue covert activities inside Venezuela, and said the U.S. is…

Republican Sen. Rand Paul is pairing with two Democrats to introduce a bill that would prevent the U.S. from attacking Venezuela without congressional approval, said James P. Sutton in The Dispatch. But other Republican lawmakers have shown “little appetite for asserting the legislature’s authority over war powers.” Some analysts are skeptical that ground action is forthcoming, but others believe it’s just a matter of time. To pressure military leaders to oust Maduro, the U.S. “is totally going to strike land” targets in Venezuela in the relatively near future, said Will Freeman, a Latin American expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. Administration sources say any land attack would likely be “a targeted operation on alleged trafficker encampments or clandestine airstrips,” and not a direct effort to oust Maduro, said Karen…

What happened A planned meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to discuss a halt to the war in Ukraine was shelved this week, after Russian officials said Putin would not bend on any of his demands. “A ceasefire now would mean only one thing,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, “that a vast part of Ukraine remains under the control of a Nazi regime.” Trump said those comments showed that another meeting with Putin would be “a waste of time.” Trump had earlier suggested that the U.S. might provide Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk missiles, but after a phone call from Putin, he dropped that idea, saying Tomahawks “could mean a big escalation.” Instead, at a combative White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, he reportedly demanded that Ukraine…

What happened Millions of Americans braced this week for a sharp rise in health insurance costs and a halt to a vital food-assistance program as the second-longest federal shutdown in history continued with neither Democrats nor Republicans ready to budge. Enhanced Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies—the centerpiece of the funding fight—are set to expire at the end of the year. With open enrollment launching next month, Obamacare premiums could rise 18% on average, according to analysts, but some Americans might see far greater increases. A 60-year-old couple earning $85,000 could expect to pay $28,000 for a plan in Oregon or $44,000 in Vermont, according to the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Democrats say they won’t approve any stopgap funding measure until the enhanced subsidies are made permanent, but…

Terms like “Nazi” and “fascist” get thrown around too freely these days, said River Page in The Free Press. But “when a Republican says ‘I love Hitler’ in a group chat, what the hell are we supposed to call him?” Politico last week reported on an almost eight-month trove of Telegram messages sent between a dozen prominent members of the Young Republican National Federation—the “GOP’s official youth wing”—“which was brimming with racism, antisemitism, and violent, authoritarian musings.” Politico counted 251 separate uses of “faggot,” “retarded,” and the N-word, along with references to Black people as “monkeys” and “watermelon people.” There were jokes about sending opponents “to the gas chamber” and of being “ready to watch people burn.” Some top Republicans condemned the comments and demanded those involved leave the party;…