Archive


Mudline Archive
STICKS, STONES, BROKEN BONES
During the 2000 Bush-Gore presidential race, we began collecting negative soundbites and posting them weekly on a MUDLINE ticker, as a temporary election feature. But in the aftermath of that tumultuous contest we realized that the tone of public discourse was unlikely to improve, and elected to continue the feature. Unfortunately, we were right; two decades later, incivility is hotter than ever. If you just can’t get enough snark on social media, this mud’s for you.
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April 13, 2025
....Trump: "Foreign leaders have stolen our jobs, foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories, and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once beautiful American Dream."....Andrew Sullivan on Trump: "He is precisely -- almost uncannily -- what this country was founded to oppose: an arbitrary, corrupt, mendacious, and utterly incompetent king."....Tina Brown: "There is a sense that we are in full-on Caligular madness, that Emperor Trump's next step could be to appoint his horse as proconsul of Florida."....Maureen Dowd: "The White House was not meant for petty tyrants on revenge tours. In the biggest job in the world, Trump seems like a very small man."....Trump on former Homeland Security official Miles Taylor, who anonymously wrote a highly-critical 2018 op-ed: "Guilty of treason."....Rachel Maddow on Trump admin handling of Abrego Garcia case: "Like Kafka mixed with Bozo the Clown."....David Axelrod: "We're living in a bizarro world where heroes are being targeted and scoundrels are in a position to target them."....biographer Tim O'Brien on Trump: "Revenge is the oxygen that keeps him afloat...He's the kid in the garage with matches, standing next to the gasoline tank."....Rep. Jamie Raskin: "Instead of removing books from the shelves about America's history and constitutional values, Secretary Hegseth should try reading them."....economic analyst Steve Rattner: "My border collie could do a better job managing this economy than this administration has done so far."....Nobel laurate economist Paul Krugman: "Trump is stupid, erratic, and weak."....former Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen on Trump tariff policy: "The worst self-inflicted wound that I have ever seen an administration impose on a well-functioning economy."....Chris Hayes to Trump: "You set the house on fire, watched it burn, and then lost your nerve and put it out. You now have a partially-burned house. Great job."....George Conway on Trump: "What an incredibly incompetent clown. He's like a monkey on a keyboard."....Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro on Elon Musk: "He is not a car manufacturer, he's a car assembler in many cases."....Musk: "Navarro is truly a moron...Dumber than a sack of bricks...He ain't built sh*t."....Vivian Wilson, Musk's trans daughter, on her father: "A pathetic man-child."....Sen. John Kennedy on Rep. AOC: "Our plan for dealing with her is Operation Let Her Speak."....Fox host Jesse Watters: "When you sit behind a screen all day, it makes you a woman. Studies have shown this."....Robert Reich on Trump administration: "It is by far the worst presidency in American history...The regime is filled with bottom-feeders, frauds, fanatics, and fools."....fired FDA vaccine regulator Dr. Peter Marks on RFK Jr.: "It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies."....Will Saletan: "The American Age is over. And it ended because the American people were no longer worthy of it."....Sen. Brian Schatz simulating Trump: "OUR PLAN IS WORKING PERFECTLY AND IS JUST A NEGOTIATING TACTIC BUT IT IS ALSO GOING TO BE PERMANENT AND WE WILL BE THE WORLD LEADER IN TEXTILES AND NOW THERE IS A PAUSE AND EVERYONE NEEDS TO CHILL BUT ALSO WE WILL NEVER BACK DOWN AAAAAAHHHHHH."....WaPo's Catherine Rampell: "Who will tell Trump he's naked?"....
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March 30, 2025
....Trump on MSNBC and CNN: "In my opinion, they're really corrupt and they're illegal. What they do is illegal."....Rep. MTG to British journalist: "We don't give a crap about your opinion and your reporting. Why don't you go back to your country?"....National Security Advisor Mike Waltz on Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg: "I don't know this guy. I know him by his horrible reputation and he really is the bottom scum of journalists."....Trump: "Goldberg is a loser."....Fox host Jesse Watters on Goldberg: "One of the biggest hoax artists around."....ranking Senate Intelligence Committee member Mark Warner on Signal episode: "Sloppy, careless, incompetent behavior, particularly toward classified information."....Andrew Sullivan: "This is a crew of bigots, sycophants, Fox News drunks and bimbos, Hollywood loonies, Claremont nutters, and uber-online edge-lords cosplaying as statesmen. But they aren't even faintly serious -- as Russia and China now fully understand. And their response to being found out was classic Trump: lie, lie, lie and call journalists scum. By any objective standard, this is a clown car."....Sen. Jack Reed: "One of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever seen."....Sen. Mark Kelly: "This administration is careless, irresponsible, rude, corrupt, and it's going to hurt America in the end."....Jonah Goldberg: "This colossal screw-up is like a watermelon on a batting tee for anyone who wants to score cheap, but deserved, hypocrisy points Gallagher-style."....SecDef Pete Hegseth: "We will continue to do our job, while the media does what it does best: peddle hoaxes."....Sen. Ruben Gallago: "Amateur hour. These are the geniuses that are also selling out Ukraine and destroying our alliances around the world."....Trump: "The US is not going to be subsidizing Canada any longer. We don't need your cars, we don't need your lumber, we don't need your energy, and very soon you will find that out."....The Economist: "Donald Trump's economic delusions are already hurting America."....Sen. Tina Smith on Elon Musk: "A billionaire a**hole."....Trump on George Clooney: "A second-rate movie 'star,' and failed political pundit."....Marc Elias on Trump executive order on elections: "The empty threat of a weak man desperate to appear strong."....Trump on two NYT reporters: "'Maggot Haberman,' who may be the least talented writer in the entire stable...and 'Liddle Peter Baker.'"....Thomas L. Friedman on Trump: "A small man in a big time."....Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller on former federal prosecutor and MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissman: "He is an absolute moron...and he's a fool, and he's a degenerate...He should hang his head in eternal shame for what he's done to this country."....Rep. MTG on Rep. AOC: "This is a woman who's never been married, she has no children, she's never had a job other than working in a bar...This is a woman that has really no life experience and no life wisdom."....Tucker Carlson on Rep. Dan Crenshaw: "A freak, a warmonger weirdo."....Crenshaw: "I live rent-free in that little mongrel's head."....
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March 11, 2025
....Rep. Jasmine Crockett on Trump speech: "We're fighting with Canada, we're fighting with Mexico, yet we're in love with Putin? This is not America. This is a terrible nightmare. Somebody slap me and wake me the f**k up."....Elon Musk on Social Security: "The biggest Ponzi scheme of all time."....Trump on USAid: "It's a scam. It's a fraud, a lot of it, most of it. The whole thing is a giant fraud."....Musk on the US government: "One big pyramid scheme."....Paul Krugman: "America is trapped in a burning Tesla."....Trump on why Zelensky wasn't invited to peace talks: "I don't think he's important."....Sen. Adam Schiff on Trump: "You can't tell when he's or Putin's talking because it's the same words that come out."....Sen. Chris Van Hollen: "When Donald Trump says something the reality is that everybody else gets a lobotomy."....Brian Glenn of Real America's Voice to Zelensky, in Oval Office: "Why don't you wear a suit? Do you own a suit?"....Trump on Zelensky: "If somebody doesn't want to make a deal, I think that person won't be around very long. That person will not be listened to very long."....former Russian president Dmitri Medvedev on Zelensky: "The insolent pig finally got a proper slapdown in the Oval Office."....Matt Taibbi on Zelensky: "The GEICO Lizard of the New World Order...F**k him. And f**k Starmer."....Maureen Dowd: "Trump is wedded to his demented dream of a troika of strongmen -- himself, Putin, and Xi Jinping -- astride the world."....Trump: "This country has gotten bloated and fat and disgusting and incompetently run."....Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita on new Michael Wolff book: "Total garbage...Nobody believes any of it."....WH Communications Director Steven Cheung on Wolff: "A lying sack of sh*t...He has a severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his peanut-sized brain."....Maureen Dowd: "Trump does not do well with reality. He tries to impose his own on the rest of us.".....Trump on NATO: "I know the guys very well. They're friends of mine...You think they're going to come and protect us? They're supposed to. I'm not so sure."....Warren Buffett on tariffs: "They're an act of war, to some degree. Over time they're a tax on goods. The Tooth Fairy doesn't pay them."....John Bolton on Trump's unwillingness to call Putin a dictator: "He believes Vladimir Putin is his friend, and y'know you don't call your friends 'dictators.'"....Open AI CEO Sam Altman on Elon Musk: "Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity. I feel for the guy. I don't think he's, like, a happy person."....Tesla bumpersticker: "I bought this before I knew he was crazy."....painted on back of car: "Russia conquered half of America faster than it conquered one-fifth of Ukraine."....
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February 24, 2025
....OMB director Russell Vought on federal employees, before his confirmation: "When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want to put them in trauma."....Mehdi Hasan: "Every time I think the appointees can't get worse, Trump says 'Hold my beer.' I am stunned that Dan Bongino, a man even Fox got rid of, is now the new deputy director of the FBI. We are so effed."....The Nation's Elie Mystal: "We are a nation of grifters, run by grifters, and regulatory agencies only get in the way of the next pyramid scheme."....Rep. AOC: "This is now a billionaire feeding frenzy."....Sen. Amy Klobuchar: "What is the difference between Greenland and Donald Trump? Greenland is not for sale."....Canadian MP Charlie Angus: "We will never kiss the ring of that gangster from Mar-a-Lago, Trump."....former Trump Russia adviser Fiona Hill: "There's no Team America for Trump. Not once did I see him do anything to put America first. Not once. Not for a single second."....Timothy Garton Ash: "[Trump's] appeasement of Vladimir Putin makes Neville Chamberlin look like a principled, courageous realist."....former Russian president Dimitry Medvedev on Trump calling Zelensky a "dictator without elections": "If you'd told me just three months ago that these were the words of the U.S. president, I would have laughed out loud."....Russia state TV on JD Vance's Munich address: "It was very nice to hear Vance's very strong speech. It was a public caning. I can't call it anything else."....Elon Musk: "DEI is just another word for racism. Shame on anyone who uses it."....Steve Bannon on Musk: "A parasitic illegal immigrant...It's pretty evident the president's using him as an armor-piercing shell that's delivering blunt force trauma against the administrative state."....Timothy Snyder: "People who have submitted to Trump see him as a strongman. But what they are experiencing is in fact their own weakness."....UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher on Trump Gaza plan: "Statecraft seems to have been replaced by real estate craft."....Thomas L. Friedman on Gaza plan: "Proves only one thing: how short a distance it is between out-of-the-box thinking and out-of-your-mind thinking."....Mona Charon on Trump: "The world's most credulous narcissist."....Mary L. Trump on her uncle: "Donald has never met an opportunity he didn't squander."....Andrew Sullivan: "There is no decent cause that Trump cannot make indecent."....
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February 6, 2025
Zelensky on Tucker Carlson: "Just stop working for Putin. Just stop licking his ass."....National Review on Trump tariffs: "This episode illustrates that Trump is a cheap date."....Rep. Jim McGovern on Trump and J6: "These pardons are sick...handing a get-out-of-jail-free card to KKK members, Proud Boys, and other criminals."....Colombian president Gustavo Petro on Trump, who deported immigrants in shackles and handcuffs: "I don't shake hands with white slavers."....Trump on Pete Buttigieg: "He's got a good line of bullshit."....Buttigieg: "Time for the President to show actual leadership."....Elon Musk on USAID: "What we have here is not an apple with a worm in it, it's a bowl of worms...A criminal organization. Time for it to die."....DNC chair Ken Martin: "Elon Musk is already showing people that he's the worst president we've ever had."....James Carville on Kamala Harris as 2024 candidate: "If we were playing a Superbowl, we started our 7th-string quarterback."....David Axelrod on Trump inaugural address: "An American Carnage burger in a Golden Age bun."....Tina Brown: "The rude vigor of Trump's charismatic presence parrying with reporters was refreshing, even if most of his answers were a fire hose of bullshit."....Dan Rather: "President Trump believes his number one opponent is a free press."....Trump: "MSNBC IS CLOSE TO DEATH. CNN HAS REACHED THE BOTTOM. This is a good thing. They are the ENEMY of the people."....Trump on NBC: "A 'network' run by a truly bad group of people."....Trump on Jim Acosta: "One of the worst and most dishonest reporters in journalistic history, a major sleazebag."....Trump on Seth Meyers: "I got stuck watching Marble Mouth Meyers the other night...and every time I watch this moron I feel an obligation to say how dumb and untalented he is, merely a slot-filler for the Scum that runs Comcast."....Trump on Jimmy Kimmel: "Weak and pathetic...One of the dumbest human beings ever."....Trump on Stephen Colbert: "A total loser."....Trump: "Wow! Rachel Maddow has horrible ratings. She'll be off the air very soon."....Trump on late-night television: "Talentless, low-rated CREEPS."....Rep. Tim Burchett on CNN: "More people are watching the Cartoon Network 'Spongebob' re-runs right now."....border czar Tom Homan on MSNBC's Joy Reid: "She's dumber than a box of rocks."....Rep. MTG on French journalist Sonia Dridi's question at WH briefing: "How about that accent...I think we need to throw out all the foreign press."....Trump on Sen. Adam Schiff: "Scum."....Andrew Sullivan on Trump: "A thug who loves thugs."....Stephen Colbert on Trump: "He's two-dimensional. He's Fascist Flat Stanley."....Martin Short: "It's like the second act of 'Cabaret.'"....