This week on Pausing Democracy, we open with Missy’s obnoxiously smooth ride through perimenopause (yes, we’re jealous, and yes, it’s lame). From there, it’s straight into the circus. “Gaslight Barbie” and a few of her administration cronies met with Congress to push the Big Beautiful Bill—except their strategy was to just rebrand it and flat-out lie, telling constituents it helps working families instead of crushing them. Meanwhile, the Trump family pocketed $5 billion from their cryptocurrency grift, a federal judge ruled Trump’s tariffs illegal (to the tune of $210 billion in refunds owed to businesses), and administration insiders are already scheming to profit off the fallout.

But that’s not even the worst of it. Trump literally blew up a boat in the Caribbean, killing 11 people under the pretense of fighting drug cartels—experts are calling it a war crime. The Epstein files remain sealed, and survivors’ voices were drowned out—literally—by a White House-ordered military flyover. Add in the ongoing scandal of Guatemalan children, rumors about Trump’s death, the CDC chaos with RFK, and a hot mic at DOJ, and it’s another week where democracy feels like it’s circling the drain.