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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.

  • December 23, 2023

    ....Michelle Wolf: "No matter how you feel about Henry Kissinger you gotta agree that he's one of America's greatest war criminals. The question is, is he America's GREATEST war criminal?"....Anthony Bourdain: "Once you've been to Cambodia, you'll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands."....Trump on immigrants: "They're poisoning the blood of our country, that's what they've done."....Sen. Tommy Tuberville: "We're being overrun. They're taking us over."....Trump on NH Gov. Chris Sununu: "A spoiled brat."....Chris Christie on Vivek Ramaswamy: "The most obnoxious blowhard in America."....Rudy Giuliani on Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss: "I told the truth. They were engaged in changing votes."....Biden spokesperson Ammar Moussa on Trump: "Parroted Adolf Hitler, praised Kim Jong Un, and quoted Vladimir Putin while running for president on a promise to rule as a dictator and threaten American democracy."....Chris Christie on Trump: "He is a danger to this country. He is unfit to be President and is here only to serve himself, not you."....Trump on the judge in his fraud case: "Ignorant."....David Frum on Trump's rivals: "They're too scared to fight and therefore they're too weak to win."....former House Speaker and Fox Corp. board member Paul Ryan: "Trump's not a conservative. He's an authoritarian narcissist."....Trump on the US: "Our country is in hell. Laughed at all over the world....Our elections are totally rigged."....billionaire donor Leon Cooperman on Trump: "A disgusting human being...His personal life is a mess and I would never vote for him under any circumstance."....Trump on Sen. Mitch McConnell: "A real jerk, a real fool, like, a stupid fool."....former WH staffer Kal Pen on Trump: "If the Constitution allows a president to overturn the Constitution, then what was the point of the Constitution? The whole thing might as well end with 'or do whatever, man, I don't give a f***.'"....Trump on Democrats: "They are going after Christians in America."....Maureen Dowd: "Conservative judges who assured the Senate that Roe was settled law in their confirmation hearings could barely wait until Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg died to throw it in the constitutional rubbish bin."....Rick Wilson on Trump: "Remember, America, Trump wants you to be afraid of him...because he's petrified you'll see him for precisely the coward he is."....Elon Musk to advertisers abandoning X: "Go f*** yourself. Go. F***. Yourself."....Cher on Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: "Can go you-know-what themselves. I wouldn't be in it now if they gave me a million dollars."....Matt Taibbi on the US: "What a crazy effing country this is."....

  • December 11, 2023

    ....James Carville: "How the hell am I still looking at Netanyahu's stupid, crooked, ignorant, negligent face? This guy's still in power after the greatest intelligence failure at least since 9/11?"....Maureen Dowd on Trump: "Why should I have to make the case that a man who tried to overthrow the government should not be president again?"....Mary Trump on her uncle: "I know for a fact that he's scared out of his mind about being imprisoned. He is actively seeking loyalists NOW who have the power to give him a get-out-of-jail-free card."....Chris Christie on Trump: "He is an angry, bitter man who now wants to be back as president, because he wants to exact retribution on anyone who has disagreed with him."....Vivek Ramaswamy on Christie: "Do everybody a favor, just walk yourself off that stage, enjoy a nice meal, and get the hell out of this place!"....various Fox News hosts on Ramaswamy: "Court jester...Embarrassing...A jerk."....Steve Bannon on Fox News: "TV for stupid people."....Sen. John Fetterman on a Biden impeachment: "It would just be like a big circle jerk on the fringe right."....Sean Hannity on the US: "Hate is running rampant all across the country."....Gretchen Carlson on Hannity: "An arsonist Arsonist: 'Sure are a lot of fires these days.'"....Trump on Liz Cheney book: "Boring."....Trump on Liz Cheney: "Suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome at a level rarely seen before."....Trump on Robert De Niro: "Has become a total loser, as the World watches, waits, and laughs."....Trump: "John Kerry has to be stopped. He's destroying America."....Mary Trump on Joe Rogan: "Has the IQ of a turnip."....Canadian comic Sophie Buddle: "I moved to America this year. I wanted to see it before it ends."....

  • November 27, 2023

    ....Trump: "Happy Thanksgiving to ALL, including the Racist & Incompetent Attorney General of New York State..."....Maureen Dowd on Trump: "The 77-year-old Mar-a-Lago Dracula has risen from his gilded coffin even though he's albatrossed with legal woes and seems more deranged than ever."....House Speaker Mike Johnson on Trump, in 2015: "He would break more things than he fixes. He is a hothead by nature and that is a dangerous trait to have in a Commander in Chief."....Chris Christie: "George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, they are rolling in their graves. If they knew that anyone would have the audacity as a felon, which Donald Trump will become this spring, to run for president?"....former Trump chief of staff Gen. John Kelly: "What's going on in this country that a single person thinks this guy would still be a good president when he's said the things he's said and done the things he's done?"....Carl Bernstein on Trump: "He is the first seditious president in the history of the United States unless you are going to count Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy."....Bob Woodward on Trump: "He's disconnected from democracy's basic premise. He doesn't like democracy because it's about other people, and he only cares about and focuses on himself."....David Rothkopf: "Biden's likely opponent has never won a popular vote, achieved nothing as preisdent, was impeached twice, has been indicted on 91 felony counts, is planning to destroy democracy and elevate our enemies, is a rapist, a racist, and criminally incompetent...Also, he's old, mentally unstable, fat, and as close to Satan as you will ever get in human form."....Trump on his enemies: "Today, especially in honor of our great veterans on Veterans Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections...Our threat is from within."....Yale fascism expert Jason Stanley: "This doesn't echo 'Mein Kampf,' this is textbook 'Mein Kampf.'"....Trump: "I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family."....Maureen Dowd: "Trump's campaign slogan should be, 'There will be blood.'"....Sen. Mike Lee on questioning FBI Director Chris Wray: "I predict that, as always, his answers will be 97% information-free."....Mary Trump on Sen. Tommy Tuberville: "Very possibly the least-intelligent person ever to hold a Senate seat."....Ann Coulter: "Trump can barely speak English. He's a gigantic baby."....Charlie Sykes on Trump: "A clown with a flamethrower still has a flamethrower."....Douglas Rushkoff on Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk: "These are not the demigods we're looking for."....

  • November 16, 2023

    ....Trump on Kim Kardashian: "The world's most overrated celebrity."....MSNBC host Joy Reid on Stephen Miller: "The white nationalist Dracula."....Hitler on Jews: "This vermin must be destroyed."....Mary Trump on her uncle: "Donald is a very sick man. He's never going to get better. He's only going to get worse. And if it suits his purpose he will take this entire country down with him."....Maryanne Trump Barry on her brother: "Donald is cruel."....Sen. Joe Manchin on Trump: "He will destroy democracy in America."....Nikki Haley on Trump: "Chaos follows him everywhere he goes."....Republican megadonor Peter Thiel on himself: "Voting for Trump was like a not very articulate scream for help."....Vivek Ramaswamy on Netanyehu: "A Nazi."....Vivek Ramaswamy on Ukraine: "It has celebrated a Nazi in its ranks -- the comedian in cargo pants, a man called Zelensky."....Charles Sykes on GOP debate: "The only real suspense was whether Nikki Haley would stuff Vivek in a locker or skewer him with one of her five-inch heels."....Rich Lowry: "Someone has to tell DeSantis that no smile is better than a fake smile."....Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders: "It's not a question between right versus left anymore. It's normal versus crazy, and President Biden and the left are doubling down on crazy."....Trump on NY AG Letitia James, tweeting while in courtroom with her: "She's a political hack."....Trump lawyer Alina Habba on her courtroom experience: "I was told to sit down today. I was yelled at, and I've had a judge who is unhinged slamming a table. Let me be very clear: I don't tolerate that in my life, I'm not going to tolerate it here."....former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on courtroom sketch of Trump: "A travesty."....Trump on Judge Engoron: "He called me a fraud and he didn't know anything about me...The fraud is on the court, not on me."....Mitt Romney on Trump: "I did not think he would be this bad."....Newsmax guest attorney Randy Zelin on Eric Trump criticism of trial: "If you're so sure that you're going to win, if you haven't done a damn thing wrong, then...stop taking a dump over the system."....Trump biographer Tim O'Brien on Eric Trump: "The worst witness you could ever have. Even among his siblings [he] was routinely derided as being incapable and a bit of a doofus."....Rep. MTG on Rep. Rashida Tlaib: "She's literally a terrorist in the House of Representatives."....Rep. MTG on Rep. Lauren Boebert: "Whore."....Dahlia Lithwick: "The cogs and the wheels of democratic governance sound janky as hell right now."....Andrew Sullivan on Trump: "Cultivates greed, gluttony, pride, lust, envy, sloth and anger more assiduously than Satan."....Charles Sykes on Trump: "A clown with a flamethrower still has a flamethrower."....Jonah Goldberg on Trump: "He's like a Far Side dog who hears 'blah, blah, blah, blah, POWER, blah, blah, blah.'"....

  • October 31, 2023

    ....Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene: "Joe Biden is Hitler. Nazi Joe has got to go."....Donald Trump Jr.: "If you vote for Democrats in 2024 you are literally voting to send your friends, maybe your conservative uncle, to the re-education camps, in time."....CNN's Jake Tapper on Rep. MTG's censure of Rep. Rashida Tlaib: "Written by someone who seems to have learned about the Arab-Israeli conflict 10 minutes before, who maybe didn't even have access to Wikipedia."....Bill Maher: "If ignorance is a disease, Harvard Yard is the Wuhan wet market."....Commentary's John Podhoretz: "Who is the editor of the Yale Daily News? Joseph Goebbels?"....Trump nicknaming NYT reporter: "Maggot Haberman of the failing New York Times."....Trump on Biden: "This incompetent FOOL is absolutely destroying America."....Trump on NYC: "Crime-ridden and dying."....Trump: "We will evict Crooked Joe Biden from the White House, and we will finish the job once and for all."....Trump on Judge Chutkan: "Her whole life is not liking me."....Trump: "This is a RIGGED TRIAL, right out of a Banana Republic, but sadly, it gives the Republicans the right to do the same when we assume office."....Trump: "Now that the 'strike' is over, the talentless, low-rated CREEPS of Late Night Television are back. I knew there was a reason I didn't want to see it settled -- True LOSERS!!!"....Trump: "Lowlifes impeached me twice."....Trump: "If you took the five worst presidents in the history of the United States and added them up they would not have done near the destruction to our country as Crooked Joe Biden and the Biden Administration have done. We are a failing nation."....Charlie Sykes: "Henceforth, belief in the Big Lie -- and support for Trump's coup -- is THE litmus test for leadership in the GOP. If you don't have a coup on your resume, don't bother to apply."....Ann Coulter: "Obama was the most articulate president we've probably ever had. Trump has a vocabulary of 50 words."....Pastor's opening prayer at Iowa Trump rally: "We ask that those who stand against [Trump] be put to silence."....Republicans on Trump -- Priebus: "He's an idiot."....McMaster: "He's a dope."....Cohn: "He's dumb as sh*t."....Kelly: "He's unhinged and an idiot."....Mattis: "He's a fifth grader."....Bill Barr: "Shockingly detached from reality."....Roger Stone: "America's greatest mistake."....Bannon: "An 11-year-old child."....Tillerson: "F**king moron."....Mark Hamill: "People complaining about my anti-Trump tweets need to understand: I love my country and I feel it's my duty to oppose this demented sociopath with every fiber of my being."....Mitt Romney on Trump: "He's not smart. I mean, really not smart."....Ron Filipkowskis on Trump: "Continues to circle the drain in a subtance-fueled, impaired descent into dementia."....Rep. Nancy Pelosi on GOP: "A cult to, really, effectively, a thug."....Garrison Keillor on Trump: "A politician whom some people look on as a male Mona Lisa and other people see as a sculpture fashioned from giraffe turds: either way, he's one of a kind."....Donald Trump Jr.: "Our mainstream media, the people in DC...want to throw Trump in jail for a thousand years and/or the death penalty."....Steve Schmidt on Pence: "He served a cruel cause with a cold heart."....Rep. Mike Johnson: "Twitter was basically an FBI subsidiary before Elon Musk took it over."....Dan Bongino on former followers: "Relieved to see so many terror-simp dipshits exiting stage left off my account, and back into their momma's basements, while howling about a fake 'occupation' they heard about from a random anon on TikTok."....John Dean during 1973 Watergate hearings: "How in God's name could so many lawyers get involved in something like this?"....