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.

  • June 6, 2025

    ....Trump on Dems: "They stole the 2020 election and hijacked the country using a decrepit corpse as a front man."....Elon Musk: "This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it; you know you did wrong."....Steve Bannon: "If progressives rub him the right way, Elon will write a $500M check to Hakeem Jeffries. He'll help steal the 2028 election."....Trump on Gov. Tim Walz: "He's a sick puppy, that guy. I feel sorry for him."....Andrew Sullivan: "Trump has the civic virtue of Jeffrey Epstein. The pardon power was always going to be a loaded gun in his tiny, careless hands."....former WH lawyer Ty Cobb on the current WH press secretary: "I don't think creepy Karoline -- when she speaks -- I don't think anybody in America really takes her seriously on a matter of substance."....Lawrence O'Donnell: "The stupidest president in American history backed down again. The only felon to serve as POTUS backed down again...And in backing down Donald Trump once again became a loser."....HHA head RFK Jr.: "We're probably going to stop publishing in the Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and those other journals because they're all corrupt."....Maureen Dowd on Trump and Musk: "One of the most flamboyant, destructive bromances in government history."....Steve Schmidt on Trump military parade: "The world will witness a day of shame, and fully understand that America has grown hollow, weak and corrupt."....former Rep. Joe Walsh: "A tyrant sits in the White House. The very thing our Founders feared most is here."...Rep. MTG on PBS and NPR: "Fake news."....Bob Costas: "You have to be in the throes of some sort of toxic delusion, and in a toxic cult, to believe that Donald Trump has EVER been, in any sense, emotionally, psychologically, intellectually, or ethically, fit to be the president of the United States."....Ben Krauss: "I would like history books to refer to DOGE as 'The Trump/Musk program that saved zero money while decimating federal research and killing poor people in developing countries.'"....Joyce Vance on Trump attacking Harvard: "Flipped the crazy switch."....Rep. Mary Miller: "The whole 'climate change' is a sham. First of all, God controls the climate, because he controls the sun, and the sun controls the weather primarily."....Ron Reagan Jr.: "My father would have been embarrassed and ashamed that a president of the U.S. was as incompetent and traitorous as Trump."....Bishop Talbert Swan: "Calling a Black POTUS married 25 years to 1 wife with 2 children, no mistresses, affairs, or scandals, 'the antichrist,' but a white POTUS  married thrice, 5 kids by 3 women, mistresses, affairs and scandals, 'God's anointed,' proves your religion is white supremacy."....Elon Musk on Trump's golden Oval Office re-design: "Finally has the majesty that it deserves."....Maureen Dowd on same: "Tarted up to look like a Vegas gift shop."....Bruce Handy on the new Tom Cruise movie: "It's hard to suspend disbelief watching a picture when you're thinking about how much Tiger Balm went into its making."....

  • May 19, 2025

    ....Sen. Richard Blumenthal: "Donald Trump is selling cryptocurrency like snake oil in the Wild West, and he's put a for sale sign on the White House..."....Sen. Chris Murphy: "The Trump meme coin is the single most corrupt act ever committed by a president."....Jeff Tiedrich: "It's a shame they don't give out a Nobel Prize for Total F***ing Incoherence, because Mad King Donny would be a lock."....Megyn Kelly on Anna Wintour: "One of America's richest, meanest bitches...The biggest bully in America."....Rep. Jasmine Crockett on Trump administration: "It's only been a hundred days, a hundred long, terrible days for anybody that absolutely believes in reality."....Alex Shephard: "America seems to be waking up to the fact that they have elected a ruinous madman."....Michael Tomasky: "In 100 days, Trump has invented something new: clown-show fascism."....Karl Rove on Trump's tariff plan: "Made him sound like Scrooge. 'Get less, pay more' isn't a winning message."....Trump on Rove: "A total loser who's been wrong about almost everything."....Rove: "I'm a bit cloudy on how I got under the president's skin...Maybe my praise wasn't lavish enough."....Slate's Dan Kois on WH press pool: "They ask where he's taking Melania for dinner, or how he's able to shoot rainbows out of his butt day after day."....Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Trump and Musk: "Our federal workers don't deserve to have a 19-year-old Doge-bro called 'Big Balls' destroy their careers."....Kevin O'Malley on FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino: "A right-wing rage maniac turned law enforcement czar, who's now sitting behind a federal desk like a bulldog in a suit."....Garrison Keillor: "Every morning the news hits us like a baseball bat. How did this crook and clown achieve the White House so he could wage war on science, higher education, the Constitution, regulatory agencies, and the world economy, while redecorating the Oval Office to look like the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas?"....Sen. John Kennedy: "I trust Qatar like I trust a rest stop bathroom."....

  • April 30, 2025

    ....Trump on NPR and PBS: "The radical left 'monsters' that so badly hurt our country."....Trump on China: "They were ripping us off like nobody's ever ripped us off."....Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent on China: "Playing with a pair of twos."....Trump on Iran: "Stone-cold broke."....national security adviser Mike Waltz: "Ukraine was and is one of the most corrupt countries in the world."....Trump on NYT, ABC/WaPo, and FoxNews pollsters: "Negative Criminals...THEY ARE SICK...AND ARE TRULY THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!"....Steve Bannon: "Orban was Trump before there was Trump."....Rick Wilson on Trump: "Nobody around him has the balls to tell him how stupid he's being. That means he actually thinks he's doing a good job."....border czar Tom Homan on Rep. AOC: "On the smart meter, she's a zero."....Trump: "I think Harvard's a disgrace."....Steven Beschloss on JD Vance: "Bullying is not negotiating. Nor is pretending to be a negotiator when you're really just there to serve Putin. Appalling."....Donald Trump Jr. on GOP senators critical of Vance's Houthi policy: "These seven cowardly neocons attacking JD anonymously are genuine pussies."....Tom Homan on Sen. Chris Van Hollen attempting to visit Kilmar Abrego Garcia in prison: "Disgusting."....Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Abrego Garcia: "Now that he's been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador's custody."....Jill Lawrence on Trump: "The guy who pardoned the January 6th rioters was never going to be President Due Process."....Trump on Fed chair: "'Too Late' Jerome Powell of the Fed...is always TOO LATE AND WRONG...Powell's termination cannot come fast enough!"....Larry Summers on Trump: "The first rule of holes is to stop digging."....former Fox host Megyn Kelly on "Conclave": "The most disgusting anti-Catholic film I have seen in a long time."....Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta on Sen. Lindsey Graham: "Can we send a rescue party? I've never seen a person so far up someone's ass."....Carolina Miranda on Trump: "Behold the new Sun King, a wannabe emperor who views his powers as absolute...God save us from the king."....Trump: "This is Biden's Stock Market, not Trump's."....Trump on Ukraine: "This is Biden's war. This is not my war."....John Cleese: "The Trump administration is now engaged in a life-or-death struggle with reality. The smart money is on reality."....Andy Borowitz on Kristi Noem: "Shouldn't the secretary of homeland security be able to secure her own purse?"....

  • 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 laureate 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?"....

  • 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."....