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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.

  • March 17, 2026

    ....Trump on Maggie Haberman: "Just another SLEAZEBAG writing for The Failing New York Times...The exact opposite of anything she says is usually the truth."....Tucker Carlson on attacks on Iran: "Absolutely disgusting and evil."....Trump on Iran navy: "Many, many ships are gone. They were war-fighting ships, but I guess they didn't know how to use them."....SecDef Pete Hegseth: "The only ones who need to be worried right now are Iranians that think they're going to live."....Paul Krugman on Iran war: "Amid the bloody shambles, one big question is, who put The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight in power?"....Sen. Mark Kelly: "Donald Trump has no effing idea what he's talking about."....Heather Delaney Reese: "His whole presidency has turned into a race to give him prizes. Gold medals. Stickers. Awards. Trophies."....Sen. Ron Wyden on Kristi Noem: "Turns out lawlessness is not a winning strategy. See you at Nuremberg 2.0."....former Rep. Riggleman on Markwayne Mullin taking over DHS: "That's like replacing syphilis with gonorrhea."....Tina Brown on WH Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt: "Looks more like a mendacious milkmaid every day."....Trump, on Iranian government: "A vicious group of very hard, terrible people."....Rep. Thomas Massie on Trump: "Bombing a country on the other side of the globe won't make the Epstein files go away."....Sen. Chris Van Hollen on Netanyahu: "It took him 40 years to find an American president who is stupid enough to drag Ameria into this war and open up Pandora's Box."....Iran, on Trump calling for "total surrender": "That's a dream that they should take to their grave."....Rep. Andy Ogles: "Muslims don't belong in American society. Pluralism is a lie."....Karoline Leavitt on Biden: "A very stupid and incompetent leader."....Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse: "If Trump were purposefully doing Russia's bidding, it is hard to see what he would be doing differently."....Jimmy Kimmel: "As you know there are some countries whose leaders don't support free speech. I'm not at liberty to say which. Let's just leave it at North Korea and CBS."....WH Communications Director Steven Cheung on Kimmel: "A classless hack who is self-projecting his depression and sadness onto others. He lives a pathetic existence where nobody -- not even his family -- enjoys his miserable company."....Jamelle Bouie on Trump SOTU: "Lashed out...with jeers and insults, as if he were auditioning to play a knockoff of Andrew Dice Clay, not speaking as the president of the United States."....financial journalist Ron Insana: "This is the worst of times, and the worst of times."....MTG on Trump administration: "Sick, f***ing liars."....

  • February 26, 2026

    James Fallows on SOTU: "The speech had different modes: Bad. And also bad."....Robert De Niro on Trump: "Failing, flailing, and desperate."....Trump on De Niro: "Another sick and demented person with, I believe, extremely low IQ, who has absolutely no idea what he is doing or saying -- some of which is seriously CRIMINAL!"....Mary L. Trump on SOTU: "He asked Americans to believe him over data, over courts, over history, and over their own eyes...He invents statistics the way other people breathe."....former US attorney Joyce Vance: "He seemed to luxuriate in the spotlight like a show-off kid with a captive audience."....Trump on Dems: "They caused and created the increased prices that all of our citizens had to endure...They knew their statements were a dirty, rotten lie."....The Atlantic's Tom Nichols: "He turned the State of the Union into a vulgar, populist carnival."....Trump on Dems: "They want to cheat. They have cheated, and their policy is so bad that the only way they can get elected is to cheat."....Steven Beschloss on SOTU: "A sickening sadist pleasurably reveling in tales of bloody violence and murder."....Rachel Maddow: "Essentially sort of violence porn."....Trump on Democrats: "Professional cheaters."....former Rep. Joe Walsh on Trump: "He's everything our Founders feared."....WH spokesperson Abigail Jackson on Never Trump Republicans: "A bunch of deranged has-been politicians."....Gov. Gavin Newsom on Trump: "A punch-drunk boxer. He's just trying to hit anything, a shadow, and he's a shadow of himself."....Bill Maher on Trump: "He's such a Karen."....Jonah Goldberg on Trump: "Crossing him, he often says, is treason, because Trump is -- in his mind -- l'état."....Sen. Jon Ossoff: "Donald Trump himself is a symptom of a deeper disease."....AG Pam Bondi on Rep. Jamie Raskin: "A washed-up loser lawyer."....Raskin on Bondi: "You turned the people's DOJ into Trump's instrument of revenge. Trump orders up prosecution like pizza."....Frank Bruni on Bondi: "She and her fellow insult-mongers aren't owning the libs, they're beclowning themselves. And it's a repellant circus."....Stephen Miller on Dems at SOTU: "They were repeatedly entreated to stand. Over and over. They refused. It was a moment that chills to the bone and which will live for a thousand years."....James Carville on Trump: "People hate you...Everybody is stabbing you in the back...They don't give a s*** about you, okay?...You can't trust anyone. Okay, maybe Stephen Miller."....Garrison Keillor: "Satire has taken over the federal government...Who is writing this show?"....Trump: "My goal is to not let any windmills be built. They're losers.".....Don Lemon: "If you look at the definition of 'sleazebag,' I think there might be a big picture of Donald Trump."....Trump on Rep. Jasmine Crockett and Rep. AOC: "Low IQ."....Trump on Rep. Ilhan Omar and Rep. Rashida Tlaib at SOTU: "They had the bulging bloodshot eyes of crazy people, LUNATICS, mentally deranged and sick who, frankly, look like they should be institutionalized."....Rep. Jasmine Crockett on Trump: "Is obsessing over two women of color that are members of the House. You are THE PRESIDENT! I don't know what black woman hurt him in his past, honey, but it is really taking him through it."....

  • February 10, 2026

    ....Tina Brown on WaPo owner Jeff Bezos: "Doesn't understand how to run a news organization any more than Woodward and Bernstein could figure out how to deliver dog kibble to your door by drone."....former WH lawyer Ty Cobb on Trump's presidency: "Has drained 250 years of dignity out of the office."....British MP Ed Davey on Trump: "The most corrupt president America has ever seen."....Trump on Bad Bunny halftime show: "One of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn't represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence. Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting."....Rep. Adam Kinzinger in response: "Imagine being the most powerful man in the world and being this much of a whiney victim BITCH. Good god what a child."....Rep. Andy Ogles on halftime show: "Gay pornography...Pure smut...Conclusive proof that Puerto Rico should never be a state."....Rev. Franklin Graham: "The NFL Leadership is pushing this sexualized agenda. Thank you, TPUSA and Erika Kirk, for providing an alternative...celebrating family, faith, and freedom!"....Atlantic's Tim Albert: "Like so many Christians who feel besieged by a wicked culture, I'm grateful to TPUSA for platforming a God-fearing paragon like Kid Rock who brought us hits like 'Balls in Your Mouth,' 'Wax the Booty,' and 'Cadillac Pussy.'"....Daily Show's Michael Kosta on TPUSA's roster: "A real Who's Who of...Who?"....Sen. Jon Ossoff on Trump's racist post: "You're seeing what I'm seeing, right? The president posting about the Obamas like a Klansman at 1:00 a.m.?"....Rep. Yvette Clark: "We're dealing with a bigoted and racist regime."....Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: "F*** Donald Trump and his vile, racist, and malignant behavior. This guy is an unhinged bottom feeder."....Rep. Bennie Thompson: "I would say this is a new low, but those who know him know better. There is no bottom. Shame on him."....The Guardian on "Melania" movie: "A gilded trash remake of 'The Zone of Interest.'...An elaborate piece of designer taxidermy."....Vanity Fair: "A mockumentary."....Daily Beast: "Propaganda."....Variety: "Should have been called 'Day of the Living Tradwife...So orchestrated and airbrushed and stage-managed that it barely rises to the level of a shameless infomercial."....New Yorker: "How do you capture a subject whose feet are more expressive than her personality?"....Hollywood Reporter: "To say that 'Melania' is a hagiography would be an insult to hagiographies."....Buzzfeed: "The worst movie I've ever seen."....MTG on MAGA: "It was all a lie."....Jamelle Bouie on ICE in Mipilas, MN: "Surveying the wreckage of Operation Metro Surge -- of this reactionary administration's crushing defeat at the hands of another band of tenacious Northerners -- it does look to me like MAGA's Gettysburg."....Mona Charon on RFK Jr: "A one-man plague...It's the way his mind works that's dangerous...Hiring him to run health policy for this country is like hiring an arsonist to head the fire department."....Trump on Trevor Noah: "He's a lightweight, this guy. The whole Grammys was terrible."....Trump to reporter Kaitlan Collins: "I don't think I've ever seen a smile on your face. You know why you're not smiling? Because you know you're not telling the truth. [CNN] should be ashamed of you."....Borowitz headline: "Trump Wins Gold in Downhill Presidency."....

  • January 30, 2026

    ....former Sen. Barbara Boxer on Trump: "He doesn't drink, but he is drunk on power. The people around him love power."....Minnesota ICE agent to unarmed observer: "You raise your voice, I erase your voice."....Trump on attack on Rep. Ilhan Omar: "I think she's a fraud...She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her."....Rep. Randy Fine: "I want Ilhan Omar to be deported and denaturalized."....Trump: "Biden and his allies destroyed our economy."....Trump adviser Stephen Miller on ICU nurse Alex Pretti: "Assassin...Domestic terrorist...Tried to murder federal agents."....Sen. Chuck Schumer on Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller: "F***ing liars."....Sen. Ruben Gallego on Miller: "Has turned ICE into a rogue agency, where his goons terrorize communities and cosplay as law enforcement."....Megyn Kelly: "I know I'm supposed to feel sorry for Alex Pretti but I don't. You know why I wasn't shot by Border Patrol this weekend? Because I kept my ass inside and out of their operations."....Andrew Sullivan on Kelly: "A cruel and sadistic human being."....Treasury Sec. Scott Bessant on Alex Pretti: "I've been to a protest. Guess what, I didn't bring a gun I brought a billboard."....Aaron Rupar on Trump's Davos speech: "Sounded like a fascist dictator suffering from a brain bleed."....Maureen Dowd on Trump: "The depth of his shallowness is infinite...Trump has made America un-American."....Trump on Somalia: "It's not a nation. Got no government, got no police, got no military, got no nothing."....Canadian columnist Robyn Urback: "How would Trump behave differently if he was legitimately losing his mind?"....Trump on Canada: "Gets a lot of freebies from us...Canada lives because of the United States."....David Rothkopf on Trump: "So profoundly ignorant of the Cold War era...He's destroying NATO from the inside out, in a way Putin could only have dreamed of."....Rickie Lee Jones: "[Trump's] takeover of the once free and wondrous Americas will end in his being escorted by armed guard out of the White House and into his helicopter and back to Russia."....Norm Ornstein: "Rubio's tombstone will read, 'I was only following orders.'"....ICE agent to Minnesota demonstrators: "You guys need to stop obstructing us. That's why the lesbian bitch is dead."....Gov. Gavin Newsom: "The Trump administration is weakness masquerading as strength...We could lose our republic as we know it. It's code red in the U.S."....Trump on Newsom: "If he ever ran the country this country would be Venezuela."....Protect Democracy's Ian Bassin on Trump: "The Madman of January."....Trump on NATO: "Will they be there if we ever needed them?"....Stephen Miller on Denmark: "To control a territory you have to be able to defend a territory, improve a territory, inhabit a territory. Denmark has failed on every single one of these tests."....Garrett Graff: "A superpower is [dying by] suicide because the [Republican] Congress is too cowardly to stand up to the Mad King. This is one of the wildest moments in all of geopolitics ever."....UN Ambassador Mike Waltz, on Trump's demand to take over Greenland: "Everybody knows that if you are renting a place you treat it differently than if you own it."....Trump on polls showing popular opposition to his threat to take over Greenland: "Fake."....Tina Brown on Trump: "His stipulation that nation members of the new Gaza Board of Peace must pay a billion dollars for membership in perpetuity, as if they are top-tier Mar-a-Lago applicants, was a vomitous expression of diplomatic profanity."....Fox host Jesse Watters, on Trump critics: "Is Trump a four-year-old brat or an aging, mentally ill dictator? You gotta pick a lane."....former WH attorney Ty Cobb: "I don't think there's anybody outside the United States that thinks Trump is sane."....Trump on Biden: "It's early, but he has to be rated as the worst president we've ever had, by far."....Mary L. Trump on her uncle: "The walking black hole of need is still going. No amount of attention, or airtime, or power, or territory, or money will ever be enough for him."....Trump, shortly after 2nd inauguration: "He who saves his country does not violate any law."....ICE agent, asked why he was filming a legal observer's car: "Cuz we have a nice little database and now you're considered a domestic terrorist. So have fun with that."....Andy Borowitz fake headline re weather: "God Punishes Trump by Turning US into Greenland."....

  • January 6, 2016

    ....Trump on MTG: "A ranting lunatic."...MTG on the GOP: "Has been trained by Donald Trump to never apologize and to never admit when you're wrong. You just keep pummeling your enemies, no matter what. And as a Christian, I don't believe in doing that."....WH spokesperson Davis Ingle on MTG: "We don't have time for her petty bitterness."....Tina Brown on tricked-out Oval Office: "Here, he holds forth, the all-powerful potentate in Doritos bronzer, the most aureate of mighty assholes, entertaining a confederacy of smiling despots: Bukele, Orban, MBS."....Mary Trump on her uncle: "He wants to turn every public space in America into some version of WWE or Ultimate Fighting. And it is just grotesque that he thinks that somehow this legitimizes him or gives him the same stature and standing as someone like President Kennedy."....Gene Weingarten on Trump speech: "Sounded like a desperate babbling auctioneer trying to unload a flimsy piece of crap on unwitting buyers."....Trump social media post: "Merry Christmas to all, including the many Sleazebags who loved Jeffrey Epstein, gave him bundles of money, went to his island, attended his parties, and thought he was the greatest."....Steven Beschloss on Trump: "Dishonors the human race every time he opens his mouth."....Trump on Stephen Colbert: "A pathetic trainwreck."....Gov. Gavin Newsom on Trump: "This is a sick man."....NYT columnist Bret Stephens on Trump: "The most loathsome human being ever to occupy the White House."....Mary Trump on her uncle: "You have gone out of your way to prove, to anyone who doesn't already know, that you are a depraved, deviant, damaged little man who cannot bear the thought that there are people in this world who are talented, valued, and loved -- three things  you are not."....Trump: "Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed."....Oliver Alexander: "Sauron wants Frodo to succeed."....Bulwark's Sarah Longwell: "When I truly want my neighbor to succeed, I break into his house, brutalize his family, steal his children, and burn his house to the ground while screaming 'Bro, I'm just trying to help!'"....Tina Brown on Trump: "Putin plays him like a balalaika."....Andy Borowitz on RFK Jr.: "As a drug dealer in college and a drug consumer afterward...he has poisoned his brain to such a degree that it's remarkable a worm found it habitable."....