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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 9, 2025

    ....Joe Rogan on Trump's texting: "Like a 79-year-old kid."....Trump to ABC's Rachel Scott: "You are the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place."....on CNN's Kaitlan Collins: "Always stupid and nasty."....on NYT's Katie Rogers: "Ugly, both inside and out."....on Bloomberg's Catherine Lucey: "Quiet, piggy."....on Somalis: "They contribute nothing. I don't want them in our country."....on Somalia: "Considered by many to be the worst country on earth."....on MN Gov. Tim Walz: "A grossly incompetent man. There's something wrong with him."....on CO Gov. Jared Polis: "Lightweight...A sleazebag...Allowed his state to go to Hell."....Don Lemon on Trump: "Seems like a gross, bigoted, racist piece of s***."....Andy Borowitz on Sarah Palin: "She lowered the bar flush to the ground and [Trump] oozed right under it."....George Will on Trump's proposed Ukraine settlement: "It reads like a wish-list letter from Vladimir Putin to Santa Claus."....Sen. John Kennedy: "Many of my Democratic colleagues -- some Republicans -- they've been acting like Jack Nicholson in 'The Shining.'"....faux children's book cover, posted by Donald Trump Jr. on social media: "Franklin Drives by Tim Walz's House and Calls Him Retarded."....Chris Ryan on David Brooks: "I'm left wondering if he has had a series of unnoticed strokes that have left him incapable of nuanced thinking."....Sirius XM host Megyn Kelly on killing of alleged drug smugglers: "I'd really like to see them suffer. I would like Trump and Hegseth to make it last a long time so they lose a limb and bleed out."....Jeffrey Epstein on Trump: "Evil beyond belief."....Maureen Dowd: "You know you're in trouble when someone evil beyond belief calls you evil beyond belief."....Rick Wilson: "MAGA is a foreign influence operation...The most gullible cohort of political suckers, mooks, rubes, and slowcoaches ever to blight this nation."....Trump on basic cognitive test: "I aced it...There are questions that I would say 99% of the people that I'm talking to right now, meaning the people from the fake news, would not do well on it."....Sen. Ruben Gallego on investigation of Sen. Mark Kelly for video about illegal orders: "This is f***ing insane...Secretary Hegseth, all these guys -- f*** you guys, you're not going to be able to scare us."....

  • November 19, 2025

    ....Tina Brown: "Jeffrey Epstein is the slug who will not die. His trail of slime sticks to everyone who ever crossed his path."....WH comms director Steven Cheung on Rep. Melanie Stansbury: "May be the stupidest member of Congress...She beclowned herself on national television, flailing around like a jellyfish (which doesn't have a brain)."....Jeffrey Epstein on Trump: "Evil beyond belief. Mad...It's obvious he could crack."....Trump on Epstein: "A sick pervert."....Michael Cohen on Speaker Mike Johnson: "Has spent more time blocking sunlight than spreading truth."....Trump on ABC's Mary Bruce: "You're a terrible person and a terrible reporter."....Rep. Nancy Pelosi on Trump: "He's just a vile creature. The worst thing on the face of the Earth."....Trump on Pelosi's retirement announcement: "I'm glad to see the stench of Nancy Pelosi go."....Fox host Greg Gutfeld: "You have a January 6th every day in a liberal city."....Trump on Sen. Adam Schiff: "A lowlife...One of the lowest of the low."....Colombian President Gustavo Petro on the US government: "To keep Epstein's list from coming out, they send warships to kill fisherman...They want to turn the region into another Libya, full of slaves."....Trump on MTG: "Marjorie 'Traitor' Greene...Frankly I don't think anybody cares about her."....Laura Loomer on Mamdani's election: "This is what happens when a party attaches itself to Qatar...The GOP is too in bed with Islamic foreigners."....Rep. Randy Fine: "Legal immigrants who hate America elected a Communist Muslim Jihadist. New York City has fallen."....Trump on NFL fans who booed him: "They were paid by Soros."....former Trump aide Alyssa Farah Griffin on Trump enablers: "How many four-star generals have to tell you the truth about who this man is?"....WH Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on the BBC: "A leftist propaganda machine."....Trump: "The license should be taken away from ABC because your news is so fake and so wrong."....Gov. Gavin Newsom on Trump: "He's an invasive species. For the country. For the world."....Trump: "The problem with Democrats -- they lie. They do it so well."....Aaron Rupar on the House Speaker: "Observing Johnson in recent months has been like watching an extended Road Runner cartoon, where the Coyote fashions intricate knots of congressional procedure in order to tie himself to a giant stack of lit dynamite."....Trump on Seth Meyers: "NO TALENT, NO RATINGS, 100% ANTI TRUMP, WHICH IS PROBABLY ILLEGAL!!!"....comedian podcaster Adam Carolla: "The real Trump ballroom is the room he gives his balls in comparison to the leg-crossing pussies like Newsom and Obama."....Trump on Biden: "Look what happened to our Country when a Crooked Moron became our 'President!'"....

  • November 3, 2025

    ....John Adams: "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."....Trump on Seth Meyers: "May be the least talented person to 'perform' live in the history of television. In fact, he may be the WORST to perform, live or otherwise."....Rep. Clay Higgins on SNAP recipients: "Any American who has been receiving $4200 per year of free groderies and does NOT have at least one month of groceries stocked should never again receive SNAP, because wow, stop smoking crack."....Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson on immigration enforcement operations: "The Trump Administration has a strong proclivity to lie."....Stephen Miller: "To all ICE officers: You have federal IMMUNITY in the conduct of your duties!"....federal agent, pointing handgun at face of veteran demonstrating peacefully: "Bang bang. You're dead, liberal."....federal agent to Latino American citizen, protesting peacefully: "You got no right here. You're an amigo, brother."....Gov. Larry Hogan: "Enough of the lies. Enough of the hate...America would be better off if the President would resign or be removed from office."....Gov. Gavin Newsom on Trump breaking off talks with Canada: "The man-child in the Oval got his feelings hurt, so he is punishing the American people with higher costs."....Trump on cattle ranchers: "If it weren't for me, they would be doing just as they've done for the past 20 years -- terrible! It would be nice if they understood that."....NYT editorial board on Trump: "He does not have a mandate to treat people cruelly or to break the law himself."....Bill Maher: "A crazy person does not live in the White House. A person who plays a crazy person on TV a lot lives there."....Andrew Sullivan: "Grandiose building projects -- like this giant gilded palace that will dwarf the old White House and the Arc de Trump -- have long been part of any tyrant's core ambition -- it's how the first Roman emperor, Augustus, declared to the entire world that the republic was dead. This is Trump's way of telling us the same thing."....Chelsea Clinton: "This is what happens when we take a wrecking ball to our heritage."....Donald Trump Jr. in response: "Your parents tried stealing furniture and silverware from the White House...and let's not talk about the intern. Sit this one out."....David Axelrod: "Trump has a manic desire to tear down history and write his own."....Rick Wilson: "He saw a place designed for civic honor, official tenderness, and historical respect and wondered why it didn't look more like a casino atrium, a glittery Liberace dreamscape."....Drew Magary: "When you elect Trump president, as Americans have now done twice over, you're voting FOR desecration. Trump is the rabble, the confusion and the theft all in one neat little package...He is not asking for permission, or for forgiveness. He's just taking."....Mona Charen: "No opportunity for notice and comment from the public. Just Trump's whim -- and a beloved national symbol tumbles to dust. It's obscene."....James Carville on Sen. Sydney Hyde Smith: "She has the unique distinction of being at least as dumb as Tommy Tuberville -- I think dumber."....Steve Schmidt on SecDef Pete Hegseth: "A broken child...The cringiest reality show buffoon in world history."....Jeffrey Toobin on commutation of George Santos' sentence: "Mr. Trump's worldview is characterized by amoral deal-making, where friends are rewarded and enemies punished, regardless of the merits of their underlying conduct."....Trump: "The 2020 Presidential election [was] Rigged and Stolen...Look what happened to our Country when a Crooked Moron became our 'President!'"....WH press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Biden press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre: "Karine worked for the most incompetent president in history."....Matt Taibbi: "The world could see that Biden was in drool-cup mode as far back as 2019."....Trump, on invasion of Iraq: "The single worst decision ever made."....Maureen Dowd: "Congress is adrift. The White House is a shipwreck. Trump is marauding in the Caribbean. James Comey and Letitia James are being forced to walk the plank, and next up could be Jack Smith and Adam Schiff. We are awash in nautical metaphors as the president plunders and pillages. He's a pirate -- and not the fun Halloween kind."....Billie Eilish at award event: "If you have money, it would be great to use it for good things and maybe give it to people that need it...If you're a billionaire, why are you a billionaire? No hate, but yeah, give your money away, shorties."....

  • October 16, 2025

    Speaker Mike Johnson on 'No Kings 2': "This hate America rally that they have coming up for October 18th? The antifa crowd, the pro-Hamas crowd, and the Marxists, they're all going to gather on the Mall. It is an outrageous gathering for outrageous purposes."....Rep. Tom Emmer: "We call it the 'Hate America' rally because you'll see the hate for America all over this thing when they show up."....homeland security adviser Stephen Miller: "The Democrat Party is not a political party. It is a domestic extremist organization."....Tina Brown on American life: "Has turned into a dream sequence from a bad horror movie."....Trump to reporter: "You're 'ABC Fake News.' I don't take questions from 'ABC Fake News.'"....Trump: "MSNBC is dying and CNN is dying like a dog. It's so pathetic. Did you see their anchors in the evening? Nobody's ever heard of them...I could take anybody off the street in Washington, DC, they'd do a better job."....Trump at press conference: "This is one of the worst reporters that you'll ever -- I don't even want to take your question. It's a waste of time."....Trump to ABC's Jonathan Karl: "You're not a wonderful person. Frankly, you're a terrible reporter. You know it and so do I."....Trump nickname for co-anchor of "Good Morning America": "George Slopodopoulos."....JD Vance on Gov. JB Pritzker: "There are thousands of innocent Chicagoans who are dead because he failed to do his job."....Pritzker on Trump: "He's copying the tactics of Vladimir Putin...There is something genuinely wrong with this man, and the 25th Amendment ought to be invoked."....Will Saletan: "To bring a democracy under authoritarian control...you need politicians who will assure the public...that nothing odd is happening. That's the role Johnson is playing in Trump's takeover of America."....Chris Christie on Trump DOJ: "What it is now is a Capo regime who goes out and executes hits when directed by the Don to do so."....Trump on "the Epstein whatever": "I don't comment on something that's a dead issue."....Fox host Jimmy Failla on Bad Bunny: "Don't be mad that we have a cross-dresser who doesn't speak English doing the halftime show, because if Kamala won, he would have been a cabinet member."....Andy Borowitz: "Bad Bunny was born in America. The same cannot be said about 67 percent of Trump's wives."....Rep. Jim McGovern: "Donald Trump has kept his promise to run our government like he ran his companies: shut down, with unpaid workers and blaming everyone but himself."....Trump: "We have to take care of this little gnat that's on our shoulder called the Democrats. They want to give all our money to illegal aliens."....Rep. Jasmine Crockett: "It is the old white nepo baby that is sitting in the White House that is causing all the destruction, pain and problems that you are enduring."....Trump: "We're under invasion from within. No different than a foreign enemy but more difficult in many ways because they don't wear uniforms."....retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey on Trump and Hegseth at Quantico: "One of the most bizarre, unsettling everts I've ever encountered. The president sounded incoherent, exhausted, rabidly partisan, at times stupid, meandering, couldn't hold a thought together."....Don Knight: "Two men wearing more makeup than their wives just stood on stage and lectured 800+ military generals on how to be 'real men.' Satire did a double backflip."....Paul Krugman on SecDef Hegseth: "I think he's living in the 4th century BC."....Stephen Miller: "Those trying to foment hatred against us, what do you have? You have nothing, you are nothing. You are wickedness, you are jealousy, you are envy, you are hatred...You can build nothing, you can produce nothing, you can create nothing."....Jimmy Kimmel on Trump construction projects: "By the time he's out of office, the White House will have slot machines and a water slide."....Trump on Rep. Ilhan Omar: "I think she's a disgraceful person, a loser...I think she's a disgusting person."....Peter Navarro, who went to prison for contempt of Congress: "There's a disturbing asymmetry between what the left is doing to us and what we're not doing to them...Bannon and I went to prison. Now they got Charlie."....Dean Blundell on AG Pam Bondi's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee: "So blinded by loyalty to Trump, she couldn't even fake professionalism."....Rick Wilson: "It was the fake orgasm of committee hearing performances...meant to trick just one man into keeping her around by flattering his ego."....Sen. Dick Durbin to Bondi: "What has taken place since January 20th, 2025, would make even President Nixon recoil. This is your legacy...It will take decades to recover."....Bondi to Durbin: "I wish you loved Chicago as much as you hate President Trump."....Australia's Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, denying MAGA influencer Candace Owens entry: "Inciting discord might be the way some people make money, but it's not welcome in Australia. Australia's national interest is best served when Candace Owens is somewhere else."....Andrew Sullivan: "Trump is a tyrant in every cell of his lardaceous body. There is a reason he bonded with Kim Jong Un and has a soft spot for Putin and Xi. He envies their total control, and, more importantly, the opportunities for cruelty that come with it."....Trump, in 2023: "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."....Donald Trump Jr on Fox News: "Honestly, I don't watch it anymore because it's so ridiculous."....Trump on David Letterman: "He looks like hell, but at least he knew when to quit. LOSER!!!"....Andy Borowitz: "Soon the only comedian left on TV will be Karoline Leavitt."....Trump on new kickoff rule: "'Sissy' football is bad for America, and bad for the NFL."....Trump on Greta Thunberg: "She's just a troublemaker...I think she should see a doctor. For a young person, she's so ANGRY, she's so CRAZY!"....Trump on Biden having cancer: "He was a stupid guy. But he was always a mean son of a bitch...It's not working out too well for him right now. So when you start feeling sorry for him, remember he's a bad guy!"....Charlie Kirk: "Joe Biden is a bumbling dementia-filled Alzheimer's corrupt tyrant who should honestly be put in prison and/or given the death penalty for his crimes against America."....JD Vance on Trump UN speech: "It's nice to have a president with a brain!"....Trump on the US: "A year ago, we were a dead country. We were dead. The country was going to hell."....Jon Stewart: "Chuck Schumer is a human flat tire."....Hitler's Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, ending the professional careers of five 'Aryan' actors and cabaret announcers by expelling them from the Reich's Chamber of Culture in 1939: "In their public appearances they displayed a lack of any positive attitude toward National Socialism and therewith caused grave annoyance in public and especially to party comrades."....

  • September 3, 2025

    Trump on Chicago: "A killing field...Everyone knows that Chicago is a hell hole."....Trump on Dems: "The party of hate, evil, and Satan."....Trump on Biden: "Not a smart man...He was just a horrible, corrupt president."....WH press secretary Karoline Leavitt on UNICEF: "Crap."....Trump adviser Stephen Miller on DC protesters: "We are going to ignore these stupid white hippies, that all need to go home and take a nap because they're all over 90 years old."....Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Trump: "Things people are NOT begging for: 1. An authoritarian power grab of major cities."....former US Attorney Joyce Vance: "Force and intimidation are not strategies we associate with American presidents...That is how dictators operate. That is how Trump operates. Let's call it what it is."....Fox host Jesse Watters on posts by CA Gov. Newson: "Greasy Gavin is out there jocking Trump's style. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But why doesn't Gavin imitate his policies?"....Newsom: "Because they are trash."....Swedish economist Anders Aslund: "Has anybody in a position of power ever lied as much as Donald Trump?...How can Americans tolerate such lying?"....Maureen Dowd on Trump: "He wants to live in the Whiter House...Now he's trying to say that we shouldn't dwell so much on slavery. He's a walking, talking deepfake."....historian Douglas Brinkley on Trump: "It's the epitome of dumbness to criticize the Smithsonian for dealing with the reality of slavery in America."....Gov. Tim Walz: "If you're trying to erase history, you're on the wrong side of it."....Trump on MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace: "She is a loser, with bad ratings, who was already thrown off 'The View.' She will be fired soon! MSNBC IS DEAD!"....Trump on Dems: "They love crime."....Michael Wolff: "In Trump world things are exactly what they seem."....Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung on Wolff: "A lying sack of s***."....Jack White on Trump's redecoration of the Oval Office: "It's now a vulgar, gold-leafed and gaudy, professional wrestler's dressing room."....Steven Cheung on White: "A washed-up, has-been loser posting drivel on social media because he clearly has ample time on his hands due to his stalled career."....Trump on MSNBC becoming MS NOW: "They are looking to change their name in order to get away from the stench of their fake news product."....Trump on Gov. Gavin Newsom: "He's an incompetent guy with a good line of bullshit -- and he doesn't get the job done."....Newsom on Trump: "Such low energy. SAD!"....Trump on Dems: "They are led by insane people."....Trump blaming Zelensky for Russia invading Ukraine: "You don't take on a nation that's 10 times your size."....Russia analyst Fiona Hill: "Everybody has to give Trump credit for everything. This is just now the price of admission for a civil meeting."....Lawrence O'Donnell: "We are watching the worst president in history manipulate the worst White House press corps in history, every single day."....Trump on Putin Alaska summit: "I think the meeting was a 10 in the sense we got along great."....Rick Wilson: "A reality-TV set piece where the world's most servile, cheap crook slobbered over the boots of a KGB thug and called it greatness."....Trump on his appointee Jerome Powell: "A terrible Fed chair. I was surprised he was appointed."....George Conway on the president: "We don't have Ronald Reagan anymore, we have Tony Soprano."....Trump on Dems: "They want transgender for everybody -- 'Everybody transgender!'"....