The Week Evening Review
Trump firing Powell, AI tools in Hollywood, and Bluesky's growth

 
TODAY'S BIG QUESTION

Will Trump fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell?

During his first term as president, Donald Trump considered firing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. He backed off then. In his second term, any attempt by Trump to fire Powell, said The Wall Street Journal, could spark an "unprecedented legal battle." 

Powell was asked after the election whether he would resign if Trump asked. "No," said Powell. "Not permitted under the law." Whether Trump wants to challenge Powell's understanding of the law is still anybody's guess, but some advisers believe the Fed's independence from presidential commands "isn't supported by constitutional law and isn't good for the economy," said the Journal.

What did the commentators say?
Trump believes the president "should have a say in rates policy," said The New York Times. He will likely want Powell to cut interest rates quickly after his inauguration, but it's not clear that Powell will go along. Cutting a Fed chair's term short "would be unprecedented" and could end up destabilizing the same markets Trump wants to boost. 

Trump has "every reason to be worried about the Fed," Jason Furman said at The Dispatch. Trump's agenda of high tariffs and big tax cuts would likely produce "upward pressure on inflation," and the Fed would likely respond by raising interest rates again. However, "decades of research" have demonstrated that independent central banks can "achieve lower and more stable inflation" than the alternative.

Trump "won't try to fire Powell," Victoria Guida said at Politico. The stock market would probably react badly. When Trump threatened in 2018 to fire Powell, stocks slid and only recovered once Trump backed down. He "might have less room to reassure investors this time around."

What next?
Even if Trump fired Powell, the processes of setting interest rates for mortgages and other big loans are "outside of any one person's or institution's control," said CNBC. The Fed sets its own rate benchmarks, but bond market investors also have influence, looking at factors like federal debt, long-term economic growth prospects, and the possibility of high inflation.

There's another option that Trump has entertained, said Yahoo Finance. He could "demote" Powell by leaving him at the Federal Reserve while installing somebody else as chair. But it's an "unsettled legal argument" whether the president has that authority. Powell's term as Fed chair ends in May 2026.

 
 
QUOTE OF THE DAY

'The drones would come down and pick off civilians — children.'

Former NHS surgeon Nizam Mamode, who spent a month volunteering at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, testifying to British Parliament about how children caught up in Israeli bombings were then "shot by IDF quadcopters"

 
 
talking points

Can AI tools be used to Hollywood's advantage?

The film business has adjusted to many technological innovations over the years, including the advent of home video, digital cameras and CGI. But the latest development, artificial intelligence, is evolving with such great speed it's impossible to predict how it will impact filmmaking long-term.

Benefits in innovation and cost
A clear advantage: AI can be used to slash costs. Asian film and tech leaders who attended TIFFCOM, the business convention that's part of the Tokyo International Film Festival, last month spotlighted the ability of generative AI to reduce expenses. Kevin D.C. Chang, the CEO of Metavision in South Korea, "demonstrated how AI tools could help him potentially reduce a $4.1 million production budget to an estimated production cost of $400,000" for his film "Cinque Terra," said Variety.

One prominent use for generative AI is aging or de-aging actors. Robert Zemeckis' "Here," a film starring Tom Hanks and made in collaboration with a visual-effects startup called Metaphysic, follows a character from age 18 to 80. Persuading audiences they were seeing Hanks in the bloom of youth would have normally "required hundreds of VFX artists, tens of millions of dollars and months of postproduction work," and major studios "don't spend that kind of money on movies like 'Here,'" said Devin Gordon at The New York Times.

The quickness and cheapness of AI did not make "Here" a hit. The film currently sits at 36% on Rotten Tomatoes. And "it's not just that the FX work is unsettling." It's also that it's "kind of shoddy," said Benjamin Lee at The Guardian of Hanks' digitally altered face.

Here to stay
Perhaps the most obvious problem with AI's Hollywood takeover is that it will eliminate jobs. In a January study surveying 300 leaders across the entertainment industry, "three-fourths of respondents indicated that AI tools supported the elimination, reduction or consolidation of jobs at their companies," said The Hollywood Reporter. 

Still, the "Pandora's box of AI has likely already been unleashed," said the Reporter. "Most corners of production, from writers' rooms to VFX departments, have embraced generative AI tools," though many of them are doing so "quietly."

 
 

Statistic of the day

400,000: The amount of rubles that Russia will fine the authors of "child-free propaganda," according to Reuters. The fine, which translates to $4,100, comes on the heels of Russia's lowest birth rate in 25 years. Russia will also fine 5 million rubles, or $51,000, to legal entities that publish the propaganda.

 
 
the explainer

Bluesky benefits from a mass X-odus 

Social media platform Bluesky has acquired more than a million new users in the days since the election, according to the company. The influx, largely from the U.S. and U.K., comes as users seek to "escape misinformation and offensive posts on X," said The Guardian. 

What's Bluesky? 
Bluesky was launched as part of Twitter in 2019 but became an independent platform in 2021. Owned by CEO Jay Graber, Bluesky takes a "decentralized approach to social media, one where different platforms and communities can interoperate" rather than all being under a single corporate banner like X or Facebook, said Sky News. 

Why are people leaving X? 
Users of X have increasingly complained of "more misinformation" and "offensive posts" since Elon Musk bought the platform for $44 billion in 2022, said Sky News. Fans of Taylor Swift, who endorsed Kamala Harris for president, are among those moving to Bluesky in protest of Musk's support of Donald Trump and the "rhetoric that has erupted" on X following the Republican's win, said Wired. Although there are Swift fans on "all sides of the political spectrum," the community "prides itself on being a positive and accepting space." 

For many, X has become the very opposite of that. You get "this awful timeline of far-right, white-supremacist conspiracy theory posts," Shannon C. McGregor, an associate professor at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina, said to The New York Times. That's something the "great majority of people don't want to interact with on a daily basis."

Can Bluesky overtake X? 
Bluesky has become a "refuge for people who want to have the kind of social media experience that Twitter used to provide," without the "far-right activism, the misinformation, the hate speech, the bots and everything else," social media researcher Axel Bruns said to The Guardian. 

Bluesky "appears to be courting users" concerned about the "ramifications" of Musk's "proximity" to Trump, said The New York Times. But the platform's new high of 14.7 million users is "still far fewer than Threads," Meta's competitor to X, which has reportedly reached 275 million monthly active users.

 
 

Good day 🌴

… for former Section 14 residents. The city of Palm Springs, California, will vote to approve a nearly $6 million reparations settlement for former residents of Section 14, a neighborhood of mostly Black and Latino families that was destroyed in the 1960s to make room for commercial development. The former residents accepted the city's final cash offer of $5.9 million, with an additional $21 million for housing, economic development and small-business programs.

 
 

Bad day ☁️

… for Apple. The company is the target of a $3.8 billion class-action lawsuit from the Which? consumer group. The tech giant is accused of breaching competition law by "forcing" U.K. customers to use its iCloud storage over rival services. Up to 40 million Apple customers in the U.K. who have obtained iCloud services over the last nine years "could be entitled to a payout," said the consumer group.

 
 
Picture of the day

Holy gathering

Members of the Islamic missionary movement Tablighi Jamaat pray in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The group's mission is to encourage fellow Muslims to adhere more strictly to the tenets of their faith, as well as seek out converts from other religions.
Abdul Goni / AFP / Getty Images

 
 
Puzzles

Test your general knowledge with The Week's daily crossword, part of our puzzles section, which also includes sudoku and codewords

 
 
The Week recommends

Comedian Youngmi Mayer's debut book, "I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying," is a raunchy, tender and hilarious memoir about growing up biracial in Korea and Saipan (a U.S. island territory in the western Pacific). If the world is just, her fanbase is about to balloon.

Mayer does standup comedy, and her TikToks have spurred more than 31 million likes. Born to a Korean mother and American father, Mayer offers an "inimitable brand of messy biracial single-mom humor" that's "something your most plugged-in Asian friends would describe, admiringly, as pure diasporic chaos," said Delia Cai at Elle.

Sly cultural observation
Astute guffaw-inducing cultural observation is easier discussed than executed. Mockery only rings true if it inverts power dynamics from the inside. Mayer's comedy interrogates whiteness as a construct, and she includes her own racial identity as half-white and half-Asian in that inquiry. 

She gives equal airtime to the Korean side of her lineage — how cruel and image-obsessed so many Koreans living in the motherland can be. As with all the best comedy, there are painful truths afoot.

'Promising new voice'
"I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying" aims to continue Mayer's movement toward self-deprecating self-acceptance. "The book is her life story," with "frank diversions about abuse, drug use, suicidal ideation and the effects of generations-deep trauma," said Cai. 

Mayer is "unsparing" but "refreshingly empathetic," said Publishers Weekly, in particular when she focuses on her parents. Though she's a relative newcomer to the comedy scene, her book proclaims the "arrival of a promising new voice."

 
 

Poll watch

Just over three-quarters of Americans, 76%, say they have a "great deal" or "fair amount" of confidence in scientists to aid public interest, according to a Pew Research Center poll. The poll of 9,593 adults also found that 89% view scientists as intelligent and 65% feel they focus on real-world problems.

 
 
INSTANT OPINION

Today's best commentary

'Cheap, clean energy is transforming Paraguay into the Silicon Valley of South America'
Arick Wierson at Newsweek
Paraguay has "historically been overshadowed by its larger and more well-known next-door neighbors, Argentina and Brazil," but the country is "about to become the Silicon Valley of South America," says Arick Wierson. Paraguay's "renewable power is attracting the attention of the world's AI heavyweights," and it's an "increasingly desirable target for foreign investment." But Paraguay "still has a lot of work to do in terms of telling its story to the rest of the world." 

'The not-so-woke Generation Z' 
Faith Hill at The Atlantic
Gen Z has been "either derided or praised for supposedly being 'woke,'" but "that progressive reputation was called into question when Donald Trump won last week's presidential election," says Faith Hill. Surveys have shown that the group "cares about blue-coded issues such as the environment, firearm safety, diversity and inclusivity." But "priorities change; young adults can care about progressive causes and still be moved by messaging that speaks to their deep unease and uncertainty."

'Extend Pell grants to short-term workforce training'
The Boston Globe editorial board
Short-term certificate programs can "help students get an entry-level job or gain new skills," but "federal Pell grants, the major source of financial aid for low-income students, aren't awarded for programs that are shorter than 600 hours or less than 15 weeks," says The Boston Globe editorial board. Extending Pell eligibility "would be a win for Republicans advocating for more workforce-related education and for Democrats seeking to expand educational access for low-income students."

 
 
WORD OF THE DAY

deliverism

A philosophy that voters will elect politicians who deliver on their promises to solve problems. The term was coined by political commentator Matt Stoller in 2021 and has now resurfaced in post-election discourse.

 
 

Evening Review was written and edited by Theara Coleman, Nadia Croes, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Joel Mathis, Summer Meza, Chas Newkey-Burden and Anahi Valenzuela, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Illustration by Stephen Kelly / Getty Images / AP; ImageMovers / Miramax / Alamy; Illustration by Stephen Kelly / Getty Images; Hachette