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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June 12, 2024
Trump on the US: "A failed nation...A very sick country."....Trump, as hush money trial jury went into deliberation: "Mother Teresa could not beat these charges. The charges are rigged. The whole thing is rigged."....Speaker Mike Johnson on guilty verdict: "A shameful day in American history...Ridiculous."....Sen. Marco Rubio: "Exactly the kind of sham trial used against political opponents of the regime in the old Soviet Union."....Rep. Jim Jordan: "This entire trial has been a sham...Legally baseless."....Rep. Steve Scalise: "A defeat for Americans who believe in the critical legal tenet that Justice is blind."....Sen. Ted Cruz: "A travesty of justice...Kangaroo court...This entire trial has been utterly fraudulent."....Sen. Josh Hawley: "A complete and total sham, a mockery."....Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders: "A politically motivated sham trial."....Fox host Jesse Watters: "A Soviet-style show trial."....Fox host Jeanine Pirro: "This is what they do in kangaroo courts and third world countries. God help America..."....Laura Ingraham: "Democrats are showing what real power is...the type of power we usually see dictators exercise in China and Cuba and North Korea."....Sean Hannity: "The foundation of our constitutional republic [is] literally dying right before your eyes."....Tucker Carlson: "Anyone who defends this verdict is a danger to you and your family."....Trump: "I am a political prisoner!"....Mehdi Hasan on Trump: "The world's biggest loser, biggest man-child, unable to deal with defeat both at the ballot box and in a jury."....Trump: "I'm here because of crooked Joe Biden...This is purely his weaponization."....Rep. Eric Swalwell: "If you believe in states' rights, except when a jury in that state convicts your nominee for president, you might be in a cult."....Trump on NY Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan: "He happens to be corrupt. It's the worst confliction that anybody's seen. Nobody has ever seen anything like it."....radio show host Dan Bongino: "Dear Liberal Commie F***wads, Warning you now, we'll be drinking your delicious tears in November."....Garrison Keillor on Trump: "A humorless huckster who's seldom seen smiling, only grimacing, and who's never hugged a small child or petted a dog or embraced his wife or told a joke..."....Colorado Republican Party on LLGBTQ+ people: "Godless groomers...Creeps...Reprobates...Burn all the #Pride flags this June."....Maureen Dowd on US Supreme Court: "It's corrupt, rotten, and hurting America...Hopelessly corroded."....Sen. John Kennedy on Biden: "He's polling right up there with fungal infections...The highest and best use of the President's time at this point would be selling catheters on Late Night TV."....
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May 28, 2024
Ken Burns on Trump: "The opioid of all opioids."....Trump: "Don't allow the worst president in the history of our country to come back and do the final destruction of America..."....Mark Hamill: "The self-own is strong with this one."....Trump on judge in his hush money trial: "Corrupt."....Trump lawyer Todd Blanche on Michael Cohen: "G.L.O.A.T."....Speaker Mike Johnson on Trump trial, two weeks before it went to jury: "A travesty of justice."....Liz Cheney: "I'm surprised that Speaker Johnson wants to be in the 'I cheated on my wife with a porn star' club. I guess he's not that concerned with teaching morality to our young people after all."....Stormy Daniels on Trump: "Real men respond to testimony by being sworn in and taking the stand in court..."....Rep. Matt Gaetz on hush-money trial: "This is a made-up crime. It's the Mr. Potato Head doll of crime."....Trump on Al Capone: "I got indicted more than him. On bulls**t, too. Just bulls**t."....Nikki Haley on Trump, Jan. 2021: "We shouldn't have followed him, and we shouldn't have listened to him. And we can't let that ever happen again."....Trump on Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg: "Fat Alvin...100 percent dishonest."....Trump on hush money case: "A Biden show trial."....Michael Cohen on Trump: "A boorish cartoon misogynist...A Cheeto-dusted cartoon villain...Dictator douchebag."....House Speaker Mike Johnson on same-sex marriage: "A dark harbinger of chaos."....Meghan McCain on Johnson: "We just elected a raging homophobe to Speaker...? Way to break stereotypes and win over hearts and minds!"....Rep. Jasmine Crockett on Rep. MTG: "Bleach blonde, bad built butch body."....Trump at rally: "Jail populations all over the world are way down and these FOOLS back there, the press, the fake news -- they don't want to report it...From Africa, from Asia, from all over the world, they are emptying out their jails into the United States. They're emptying out their mental institutions into the United States, our beautiful country."....Bill Maher on Trump: "I can't put my nervous system on the line every day for every stupid tweet and every bonehead thing he does."....SC Justice Clarence Thomas on DC: "What you are going to find, especially in Washington, is that people are going to pride themselves on being awful. It's a hideous place."....Matt Bao on J.D. Vance's memoir: "If the Pentagon could engineer a fame-seeking missile, it would look a lot like 'Hillbilly Elegy.'"....WaPo review of Gov. Kristi Noem's book "No Going Back": "Mostly a hodgepodge of worn chestnuts and conservative maxims, like a fistful of old coins and buttons found between the stained cushions in a MAGA lounge."....NY Post's Kathleen Parker on Noem: "When a politician writes a book AND gets veneers, she's probably hoping to do some victory smiling as sidekick to a reality-show scowler...They're a match made in the tanning booth."....
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May 5, 2024
....Trump on special counsel Jack Smith: "A f***ing asshole."....Trump on Fulton County DA Fani Willis: "Mrs. Wade...A real beauty."....Michael Cohen nickname for Trump: "Von SchitzinPants."....Rachel Maddow: "I did not think [the wheels of justice] would grind so slowly that they would rock the defendant apparently to sleep...We are dealing with someone who is fundamentally buffoonish."....Andy Borowitz on Trump's trial-dozing: "Could it be that he's finally as bored with himself as we've been for decades?"....Trump on Biden presidency: "A Gestapo administration...Joe Biden and the fascists that control him are really the true threat to democracy."....Rep. MTG: "It's antisemitic to make Israeli aid contingent on funding Ukraine Nazis."....former GOP Rep. Ken Buck: "Moscow Marjorie is focused on this Ukraine issue, and getting her talking points from the Kremlin."....Michelle Cottle on MTG: "When Russian propagandists start praising your politics and beauty, it's time to rethink your life choices."....Rep. Jared Moskowitz to MTG: "There are no concentration camps in Ukraine...No gas chambers. No ovens...Stop bringing up Nazis and Hitler...Get yourself over to the Holocaust Museum. You go see what the Nazis did."....Trump: "Crooked Joe Biden HATES Israel and Hates the Jewish people. The problem is that he HATES the Palestinians even more."....Maureen Dowd: "What could be more absurd and hypocritical than the putative Republican nominee selling Bibles and promoting an America with draconian abortion laws during his trial over a $130,000 payment to keep a porn star from telling voters about their dalliance?"....Jennifer Rubin on election fraud trial: "Unable to mask his emotions in the midst of a narcissist's worst nightmare, Trump has never looked so small, so weary, and so feeble."....Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt: "This is a communist show trial in the media capital of the world. It is cruel, it is unjust."....Vivek Ramaswami: "The whole point of Donald Trump's trials is not that they were supposed to be fair. They were designed to be unfair from the get-go."....Trump on Biden: "He will surely be Indicted and Tried for many of his Dishonest, Illegal, or Incompetent Actions."....Mary Trump on her uncle: "He's truly the worst person in any room...He gazes into a mirror, sees a god, and expects us all to bow down. His ego is like a black hole."....Jordan Klepper on Trump: "The king of pettiness."....Trump: "Biden has destroyed our country."....Rep. Jamie Raskin: "They should move the Supreme Court over to the RNC headquarters, because they're acting like a bunch of partisan operatives."....Jimmy Kimmel on Trump: "He should be on the cover of Doing Time magazine."....Trump on RFK Jr.: "A Democrat 'plant.'"....RFK Jr. on Trump: "Unhinged."....former Trump AG Bill Barr: "A continuation of the Biden administration is national suicide, in my opinion."....Nick Offerman on Trump v. Biden: "Would you rather have a pile of dogshit or a loaf of bread?"....
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April 15, 2024
Trump on Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels: "Two sleazebags who have, with their lies and misrepresentations, cost our Country dearly."....Lev Parnas to Trump: "Stop whining, Donny. It's time to pay the piper!"....Trump on Biden: "He is a criminal. He is a horrible president."....Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt: "Joe Biden can hardly speak."....Trump on Biden SOTU: "He was high as a kite."....Barry Diller on Trump's Truth Social stock: "It's a scam! Just like everything he's ever been involved in is some sort of con."....Sen. Bernie Sanders on Trump: "He's a pathological liar...He will lie about virtually everything."....Michelle Cottle on Trump: "An Olympic-caliber demagogue."....Rep. Sean Casten on House Republicans: "Cowards, led by morons."....Stephen Beschloss on the House Speaker's Mar-a-Lago visit: "Johnson standing beside Donald Trump makes clear he is immune to shame."....Trump mega-donor Tom Klingenstein on Sen. Chuck Schumer, former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Mark Milley, and others: "Trump hates his enemies as much as they hate him. His enemies are America's enemies."....Rep. Dan Crenshaw on Tucker Carlson: "Will eventually fade into nothingness, because his veneer of faux intellectualism is quickly falling apart and revealing who he truly is: a cowardly, know-nothing elitist full of s***."....Today News Africa's Simon Ateba: "Any crazy person out there attempting to attack my friend Tucker Carlson over his latest interview should have bombs dropped on themselves and their family members. Then we can talk from the grave."....biographer Tim O'Brien on Trump: "He's lazy, he plays golf most of the time, and he's not particularly bright."....Trump on retirement of Rep. Mike Gallagher: "Never forget our cowards and weaklings! Such a disgrace."....Maureen Dowd on Trump: "He's inflaming his base with language straight out of Macbeth's trip to hell."....Larry David on Trump: "You can't go a day without thinking about what he's done to this country because he's such a little baby that he's thrown 250 years of democracy out the window by not accepting the results...He just couldn't admit losing...He knows he lost. And look how...he's convinced all these people that he didn't lose. He's such a sick man."....Trump on immigrants: "I don't know if you call them 'people,' in some cases. They're not people, in my opinion."....Trump: "If you want to help Joe Biden wheel Granny off the cliff to fund government benefits for illegals, then vote for Crooked Joe Biden."....Eugene Robinson on Trump: "Could be making a big mistake hawking the 'God Bless the USA Bible' to his MAGA supporters. Some of them might actually read it."....David Axelrod on Trump: "A guy who has violated eleven of the Ten Commandments."....evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats: "The number one hurdle for Donald Trump is I've never met a dad or a mom or a grandpa or grandma who have told me they want their son or daughter or grandchild to grow up to be like him."....House Oversight Committee chair James Comer to Rep. Jared Moskowitz: "You look like a Smurf."....
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March 27, 2024
Trump on judge and court staff: "These COUNTRY-DESTROYING SCOUNDRELS & THUGS HAVE NO CASE AGAINST ME. WITCH HUNT!"....Daily Show's Jordan Klepper on Trump: "America's defendant-in-chief."....former Rep. George Santos: "The Republican Party continues to lie and swindle its voter base."....Rep. MTG: "Our Republican majority is a complete failure."....Trump on Biden: "He can't talk. He's a very dumb person."....Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer on Trump: "He spent the weekend golfing, the morning comparing himself to Jesus, and the afternoon lying about having money he definitely doesn't have."....Trump: "Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion."....House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer on Dems: "Beclowning themselves."....Rep. Jamie Raskin on Biden impeachment hearings: "The whole thing is just an embarrassment and a disgrace, and it has a very strong whiff of Russian propaganda now."....Trump lawyer Alina Habba on Trump's multimillion-dollar fraud penalty: "Manifest injustice."....Trump: "They're breaking every law to persecute us."....Robert DeNiro on Trump: "He's so f***ing stupid."....Geraldo Rivera on Rachel Maddow: "Guilty of malignant wokeism."....Trump: "The top people at NBC ARE WEAK. They were BROKEN and EMBARRASSED by LOW RATINGS, HIGHLY OVERPAID "TALENT."....James Carville on Biden's poll numbers: "When you look at 'em it's like walking in on your grandmother nekkid. You can't unsee it."....Trump on Bragg case: "This is a witch hunt. This is a hoax."....Trump on his fraud conviction: "This is communism in America!"....Trump: "Jimmy Kimmel's ratings are terrible. He's not a talented guy...A lousy host...Dumber than I thought."....Kimmel on Trump: "Isn't it past your jail time?"....