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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December 24, 2020
....Rep. Adam Schiff on Trump: "Lawless until the bitter end."....CNN's John Berman on Trump pardons: "It's a good night to be a corrupt Republican congressman, or a confessed liar from the Russia probe, or a convicted murderer of Iraqi civilians."....Senate Majority Whip John Thune on any challenge to Biden's win: "Going down like a shot dog."....Trump on Thune: "RINO...Mitch's boy. South Dakota doesn't like weakness. He will be primaried in 2022, political career over!"....Rudy Giuliani: "I will find you, the Republican turncoats, the Republican quislings, the REAL villians there! You're acting like Dominion owns you."....Giuliani on Smartmatic: "We have definitive proof that it [sent votes out of the country.] Definitive proof. They were also counting votes in Barcelona, and they were sending folks to Venezuela...[and] Iran."....Trump on the late Sen. John McCain: "One of the most overrated people in D.C."....Arizona Republic: "Rather than attempt to insult the man's memory, Trump should ask McCain's advice. After all, Mr. President, he's right there. Inside your skull."....Meghan McCain: "It kills you that no one will ever love you or remember you like they loved and remember him. He served his country with honor, you have disgraced the office of the presidency."....forensic psychiatrist Bandi Lee on Trump: "A car without functioning brakes...At the bottom of the hill it always crashes."....Trump on George Conway: "Deranged loser of a husband."....Trump on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer: "A totally overrated loser."....Susan Glassed on Trump: "A would-be dictator who is dragging an entire political party into a fever dream of denialism."....pro-Trump conspiracy theorist lawyer Lin Wood: "Make sure you have PLENTY of water, wood, flashlights and batteries, candles, radio, 2nd Amendment supplies, and plan to meet with leaders of your communities. Remember, we have only one President at a time. Our leader is Donald Trump, not Biden."....GA Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Green on Republicans who don't contest the election: [They are supporting] the Chinese Communist Party takeover of America."....Donald Trump Jr.: "The Bidens are 100% owned by the Chinese Communist Party."....Trump: "Fox News is dead. Really Sad!"....Fox & Friends co-host Will Cain on mask-wearers: "They treat it as a virtue signal that they're better, more scientific-minded, smarter than you."....George Clooney on people not wearing masks: "Everybody is like, 'Well it's my freedom.'...You're free to smoke until your lungs turn black, but you can't do it on the bus. And you're free to drink until your liver comes out your a**, but you can't drink and then get behind the wheel of a car. There have to be certain rules. This is one that says, 'Put on a f***ing mask and we'll get through this.' We've got vaccines coming -- let's save another 60,000 lives before the vaccines."....Tucker Carlson on Jill Biden: "[She's a doctor] in the same sense Dr. Pepper is."....CNN's Jim Acosta to WH Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany: "Isn't it hypocritical of you to accuse others of disinformation when you spread it every day?"....Amy Klobuchar on Republicans: "If Vladimir Putin has accepted the election results but you haven't, you might have a problem."....CNN's Brianna Keilar: "The President could have lost this election only once, but because of his penchant for self-sabotage he keeps losing it over and over."....Lou Dobbs on GOP: "Watching its blood drain into the streets because they're gutless."....James Carville: "The commander in chief of the armed forces of the United States has abandoned his post."....Trump in The Art of the Deal: "You can't con people, at least not for long. You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole. But if you don't deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on."....former Rep. Joe Walsh on Trump "election fraud" fundraising: "It's what he is. It's what he does. It's all a con. It's all a lie. It's all a grift. And sadly, millions continue to fall for it."....Rep. Maxine Waters: "Trump, you attempted to overthrow the legitimate votes of Americans...You got kicked in the face by 46 courts and...the Supreme Court you thought you owned! The democracy is stronger than you will ever understand. Goodbye and good riddance!"....
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December 14, 2020
....Karl Rove on Trump: "America likes comebacks, but they don't like sore losers."....Der Spiegel: "Trump's presidency ends as it began: Without decency and without dignity...Loser of the Year."....George Conway: "I didn't vote for a Democrat over a Republican this year, or for a liberal over a conservative. I voted for an empath over a psychopath."....presidential historian Jeff Shesol on Trump's COVID-19 response: "It's not simply that he has decided not to express concern or sorrow, it's that he does not feel the sorrow."....Rick Hasen on Texas lawsuit against four states: "Dangerous garbage. This is a press release masquerading as a lawsuit."....Mary Trump on 126 GOP House members who signed on in support of Texas lawsuit: "Confessed, in writing, to being anti-democratic traitors...These cowards have chosen sedition."....Rep. Adam Schiff: "History will remember the enablers."....CNN's Don Lemon: "Tried to kill our democracy. Hang your heads in shame."....Sen. Chris Murphy: "They have betrayed their country...You really have to hate America and all it stands for to openly attempt to overthrow democracy."....Laurence Tribe: "They're all unprincipled cowards, trembling at the prospect of a mean tweet by the Coward in Chief."....Michael Tomasky on Trump: "He'll tear the system apart rather than acknowledge its verdict."....Trump: "Most corrupt Election in history, by far. We won!!...78% of the people feel (know!) the Election was RIGGED...They cheated like nobody's ever cheated before...This wasn't, like, a close election...We won Georgia big, we won Pennsylvania big, we won Wisconsin big. We won all of these states."....retired general and pardoned felon Michael Flynn: "There was in fact massive fraud."....Sean Hannity: "Donald Trump won by a landslide, and they stole it from him!"....Stephen Miller: "We have more than enough time to right the wrong of this fraudulent election and certify Donald Trump as the winner."....Lou Dobbs on SCOTUS: "Cowardly."....Trump on SCOTUS: "Chickened out."....Trump fan at rally: "A coup is taking place in front of our eyes."....Garry Kasparov: "An incompetent, pathetic coup attempt is still a coup attempt...He's a loser, a one-term pothole on the American highway of democracy."....Steve Schmidt: "We are now one election away from losing our democracy because one party doesn't believe in it."....Paul Waldman on GOP: "Has all but declared war on the entire system of American democracy...Trump forced them to choose between him and their country, and they chose him."....Sean Colarossi on Trump: "Won't stop whining like a grade schooler on a Little League team who just struck out."....conspiracy theorist Alex Jones: "We will never back down to the Satanic pedophile globalist new world order and their walking-dead reanimated corpse Joe Biden...Joe Biden will be removed one way or another!"....Trump: "The Biden Administration will be a scandal-plagued mess for years to come.".... Rick Wilson on Trump: "My s*** filter is full."....
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December 8, 2020
Trump on GA Gov. Brian Kemp: "Moron...nutjob..."....WH Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany on WaPo: "Blinding propagandist Fake News proclivities."....Susan Glasser: "Donald Trump in defeat, it turns out, is even more whiny, dishonest, and self-absorbed than he was before his decisive loss to Biden."....Judge Jeanine Pirro on AG William Barr: "You are so deep in the swamp you can't see beyond your fellow reptiles."...Ron Perlman on Trump: "Nothing says 'I'm guilty as f***' like a self-pardon."....National Review on Trump post-election conduct: "Disgraceful."....Daily Kos on Trump's 46-minute video: "Seemed to be thoroughly unhinged from reality. His pathetic, desperate attempts to cling to power are not the actions of a fully rational man."....Jonathan Rauch on Trump: "A firehose of falsehood...His goal here is to confuse people, and he's doing very well at that. This is a classic propaganda tactic."....Sen. Rand Paul: "I don't know anyone who actually believes that Joe Biden won the presidency."....Molly Jong-Fast on Fox News host Maria Bartiromo: "How not to journalism."....Fox News host Eric Shawn on Trump: "He can't process the fact that someone who he thinks is so inferior to him won the election."....George Takei: "I like presidents who don't pardon traitors."....Gov. Tom Ridge: "History will record the shameful irony that a president who lied to avoid military service staged a bogus event on the hallowed ground of Gettysburg in a brazen attempt to undermine the Republic for which scores of real patriots had fought and died to preseve since its founding."....Paul Krugman: "It has been clear for years that the modern GOP is a party that can't handle the truth."....Trump biographer Michael D'Antonio: "He's so incompetent that he cannot even succeed at being a loser."....AOC: "Republicans like to make fun of the fact that I used to be a waitress, but we all know if they ever had to do a double they'd be the ones found crying in the walk-in fridge halfway through their first shift because someone yelled at them for bringing seltzer when they wanted sparkling."....Dan Rather on Trump: "Worst farewell tour. Ever."....
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November 27, 2020
........Rep. Matt Gaetz: "The Left has a bloodlust that will only be quenched if they come for those who fought with Donald Trump to deliver for the American people."....Rep. Jim Jordan: "They tried to cancel Thanksgiving. Didn't work! They're coming for Christmas next."....Ret. Adm. James Stavrides on Trump: "Has figuratively decapitated our operational civilian leadership in the Pentagon. Jubilant high-fives are the order of the day in Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, and Pyongyang."....former National Security Adviser Susan Rice on Trump's post-election behavior: "I'm quite sure that Vladimir Putin is doing a happy dance."....former CIA director John O. Brennan on Trump: "I leave his fate to our judicial system, his infamy to history, and his legacy to a trash heap."....MD Gov. Larry Hogan: "We were the most respected country in the world with respect to elections. And now we're beginning to look like we're a banana republic."....Michael Cohen on Trump: "Is acting like a crybaby...He'd rather burn the house down than hand over the keys."....Nic Robertson on G-20 reaction to Trump's defeat: "The combined unspoken message from the world's leaders is: don't let the door hit you on the way out."....Obama to Trump: "Think beyond your own ego."....Trump on Dominion voting systems: "Horrible, inaccurate, and anything but secure."....Tucker Carlson on Trump attorney Sidney Powell: "She never demonstrated that a single actual vote was moved illegitimately by software from one candidate to another. Not one."....Chris Christie: "The conduct of the president's legal team has been a national embarrassment...If you are unwilling to come forward and present the evidence, it must mean the evidence doesn't exist."....Sen. Mitt Romney on Trump pressuring election officials: "Difficult to imagine a worse, more undemocratic action by a sitting American president."....former Federal Election Commission member Trevor Potter on Trump: "What he's saying, explicitly, is if a party doesn't like the election itself, they have the right to change it by gaming the system."....Robert Reich: "Weakening Americans' faith in the fundamental institutions of our democracy will be Trump's most reprehensible legacy."....Trump on the election: "It's a corrupt system."....National Review on Trump: "A bid for infamy."....House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Trump: "A psychopathic nut."....former WH national security adviser John Bolton: "Trump is throwing rocks through windows. I think he's the political equivalent of a street rioter."....MSNBC's Joe Scarborough: "The gig is up. It's time to tell the president that he and Rudy and their confederacy of dunces need to stop making fools of themselves."....MSNBC's Chris Hayes: "Trump's entire life has been just acting like an absolute shameless, bratty, entitled a**hole about everything, and everyone just kind of letting him do it."....Steven Beschloss: "In a sane world, Republicans would reject a lame duck who's urinating in their bed."....Paul Waldman: "It has now become standard practice for any Republican who lost their election, no matter how badly, to claim it was because of fraud."....Rush Limbaugh: "There's simply no way Joe Biden was legitimately elected president."....Lou Dobbs: "Many are trying to steal this election from President Trump. There is no doubt about it."....Trump: "If you count the legal votes, I easily win."....Eugene Robinson on Trump: "Our mad king...The theme of his failed reelection campaign should have been 'Make America Sick Again.'"....former federal prosecutor John Flannery on Trump: "The enemy of the people...The enemy of the state."....Rudy Giuliani: "If you tell me that Philadelphia doesn't cheat on elections, I'm going to tell you you're living on Mars."....Ari Melber: "Mo' Giuliani, mo' problems."....retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey on Giuliani: "A visibly incoherent, dangerous, rabid, shallow fellow."....former WH press secretary Joe Lockhart on Trump: "Will go down in history as America's biggest mistake. Stop giving him what he wants -- attention."....Seth Meyers: "Can we just call this an attempted coup now? Because that's what it is...Even if it doesn't succeed because everyone involved is a moron, that doesn't make it any less horrifying."....Randy Rainbow: "Sorry, but I won't be comfortable calling him President Biden until he wins Georgia at least two more times."....Michael J. Fox: "Biff is president."........
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November 15, 2020
........Trump on Biden: "The worst candidate ever to run in the history of presidential elections...He only won in the eyes of the FAKE NEWS MEDIA. I concede NOTHING!"....Mary Trump on her uncle: "This is what it looks like when a loser loses."....Rep. Pramala Jayapal: "A sore loser is still a loser."....former Trump casino exec Jack O'Donnell on Trump: "He is not who he says he is. He is a walking lie."....Politico's Michael Kruse: "Trump is an expert liar. The foundation of his existence is lies."....former Trump attorney Michael Cohen: "99.9% of everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie."....Roger Cohen on Trump: "No Bible offers consolation to this man, no creed, no truth, no sense of decency, not even Fox News now, nothing."....former congresswoman Michele Bachmann: "Smash the delusion, Father, of Joe Biden as our president. He is not."....Rep. Matt Gaetz: "Joe Biden cannot be Commander in Chief. He can barely be commander of a sentence."....Tucker Carlson: "We have no clue what Joe Biden actually thinks, or even if he's capable of thinking."....Trump: "They're trying to rig an election, and we can't let that happen...We have so much evidence, so much proof."....CNN's Daniel Dale on Trump's November 5th press conference: "The most dishonest speech of his presidency."....WaPo's Philip Bump: "A speech of historic dishonesty...Will be studied for years, just as the Oval Office recordings of Richard M. Nixon are studied."....Jim Acosta: "The president is lying right now. Over and over and over."....Thomas L. Friedman: "In the 2000 election Al Gore took a bullet for the country. Tonight President Trump put a bullet into the country. Most shameful thing I've ever seen."....Rep. Adam Schiff: "The most dishonest and anti-democratic moment in the history of the presidency...Undermined the very foundation of our democracy."....former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge: "The President disrespected every single American who figured out a way to safely vote amid a pandemic that has taken 235,000 lives...Absolutely shameful. Yet so predictable."....David Remnick: "There has never been a more dangerous speech by an American President...An unstable authoritarian trying his best, on live television, to undermine one of the oldest democratic systems in existence."....Sen. Chris Murphy: "It's a lie every five seconds. Not small lies either. Just nuclear-grade whoppers."....Anderson Cooper on WH press secretary Keyleigh McEnany: "Taking us completely through the looking glass and to a galaxy far, far away."....Michelle Goldberg: "It's hard to tell whether Donald Trump is attempting a coup or throwing a tantrum."....former RNC chairman Michael Steele: "We need to stop carrying Donald Trump's baggage, as a country...And if [he] wants to be that stubborn little brat standing in the middle of the mall stamping his feet, refusing to move, okay."....former Secretary of Defense William Cohen on GOP: "The way they are conducting themselves is more akin to a dictatorship than a democracy."....Thomas L. Friedman: "Once Trump was allowed to spread the 'birther' lie for years...he realized he could get away with anything."....Sec. of State Mike Pompeo: "There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration."....NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly: "Might Pompeo point us to a state on the map where there's evidence of widespread voter fraud?"....Cindy McCain on Trump's post-election behavior: "Only serves to make the rest of us who did vote for [former] Vice President Biden know we did the right thing."....Sean Hannity on Democrats: "They're sycophants...I'm sick of all these people."....Tucker Carlson on Dems: "They want to make you drink Starbucks every day from now until forever, no matter how it tastes."....Jeanine Pirro: "To all those Trump-hating demon rats and the mainstream media: Keep up the antics. You're all losers. Sore losers. Stupid losers. Too dumb to even know that you're losing."....MSNBC analyst David Plouffe: "I think Republicans in the Congress have given up on our Democracy."....CNN'S Jake Tapper on GOP leaders: "Acting like babies."....Trump on election: "A fraud on the American public...An embarrassment to our country."....Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney: "What the president needs to do is, frankly, put his big boy pants on. He needs to acknowledge the fact that he lost."....Biden campaign spokesperson on Trump: "The United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House."....Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on election: "This is an example of the ugly face of liberal democracy in the U.S. Regardless of the outcome, one thing is absolutely clear, the definite political, civil, and moral decline of the US regime."....Vladimir Putin: "The liberal idea outlived its purpose."....Anderson Cooper on Trump: "He wants to take everybody down with him, including this country."....former CIA director John O. Brennan: "Trump will never acknowledge he lost the election. Honesty and accepting reality are not in a despot's DNA."....Stephen Colbert on Trump: "Il Douchey."....Seth Meyer on Trump: "The single most annoying person on the face of the earth."....Jake Tapper: "Some say the world will end in fire. Others say at Four Seasons Total Landscaping north of the Tacony-Palmyra bridge, near the porn shop."....state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta on Rudy Giuliani: "The only thing the mayor's comments prove is that he has lost his mind."....Dan Rather on Trump: "Dude. You lost."........