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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October 17, 2024
Trump on the US: "We are a country whose economy is collapsing into a cesspool of ruin."....Biden on Trump: "He's a loser in everything he does...Remember when Trump told them if I got elected the stock market would crash?...If he meant the stock market would crash through record highs, he was actually right."....Trump on new 'Apprentice' movie: "Pile of garbage...[made by] human scum."....Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung on Bob Woodward's 'War': "An angry, little man...This trash book...either belongs in the bargain bin of the fiction section of a discount bookstore or used as toilet tissue. Woodward is a total sleazebag who has lost it mentally, and he's slow, lethargic, incompetent, and overall a boring person with no personality."....Trump on Woodward: "He's a storyteller. A bad one. And he's lost his marbles."....Gov. Tim Walz on Trump: "We just found out Trump had his branded Bibles printed in China. This dude will even outsource God."....Trump on Democrats: "It is the enemy from within and they're very dangerous. They are Marxists, communists, fascists...a guy like Adam Schiff...the Pelosis, these people are so sick and so evil."....Elon Musk on Harris: "She'll say whatever is on the teleprompter...It's whoever controls the teleprompter who is in charge."....Trump on Harris: "We're not going to let her destroy our country, that dummy."....Trump on undocumented immigrants: "They raped our country."....Trump: "The wind is bullshit, I'll tell you. It's horrible, so expensive."....Trump on Harris: "She doesn't know what the hell she's talking about. There's something wrong with her."....Trump on Mike Pence on J6: "He couldn't cross the line of doing what was right."....Geraldo Rivera on Trump: "Sore loser."....Trump on Harris: "Dumber than hell...Virtually incoherent."....Fred Trump III: "Every family has their crazy uncle. My Uncle Donald is atomic crazy."....Bob Costas: "You have to be in a toxic cult to believe that Trump has ever been emotionally, psychologically, intellectually, or ethically fit to be POTUS."....former national security adviser Susan Rice on Trump: "The Neville Chamberlin of the Republican Party. He's an appeaser. He's a surrender monkey. And that's what we're seeing in his approach to Ukraine."....former Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull: "When you see Trump with Putin, as I have on a few occasions, he's like the 12-year-old boy that goes to high school and meets the captain of the football team. 'My hero!' It is really creepy."....Sen. Ted Cruz on Senate Democrats: "You are all traitors."....Eric Trump on Democrats: "They tried to kill [my father]."....Ohio sheriff Bruce D. Zuchowski on Harris: "When people ask me...What's gonna happen if the Flip-Flopping, Laughing Hyena wins? I say...write down all the addresses of the people who had her signs in their yards."....Trump: "It's not worthwhile doing interviews on Fox, because it all just averages out into NOTHING. Fox News has totally lost its way!"....Trump: "I watch that stupid 'View' where you have these really dumb people..."....Trump on Neil Cavuto: "Has one of the worst shows on television -- and the worst-rated on Fox News. The people on Fake News CNN are better!"....Trump on US cities: "You can't walk across the street to get a loaf of bread. You get shot. You get mugged. You get raped. You get whatever it may be."....David Corn on Trump: "He's trying to convince tens of millions of Americans that we're living in a dangerous hellhole, and imperiled by barbarians who happen to be people of color, and that the Dems are purposefully orchestrating this, and that only he can save us. This is what dictators do."....retired National Guard Maj. Gen. Randy Manner on Trump: "We have a fascist running for President of the United States."....Trump on CA Gov. Gavin Newsom: "Newscum, I call him."....Trump on Harris: "Her actions have led many to believe that there could be something very wrong with her. Also, she is slow and lethargic in answering even the easiest of questions."....Elon Musk: "Nobody's even bothering to try to kill Kamala, because it's pointless. What do you achieve? Nothing. Just buy another puppet."....Trump, upon the passing of First Lady Rosalynn Carter: "I thought to myself, 'Jimmy Carter is happy now because he will go down as being a brilliant president by comparison to Joe Biden.'"....
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October 3, 2024
Mary L. Trump: "Every time my uncle opens his mouth, something incomprehensible, delusional, or terrifying comes out of it."....Trump on climate change: "They don't ever talk about the environment anymore. You know why?...It's one of the great scams of all time."....Trump on 2020: "They rigged the election."....Trump on federal and state response to hurricane in SC: "Going out of their way not to help people in Republican areas."....Trump on Walz: "Tampon Tim...Not very bright...Low IQ!...Very much like Kamala, he is a TOTAL JOKE!"....Trump on ABC: "Perhaps the worst and most dishonorable network in broadcasting!"....Trump: "CBS is LYING AGAIN about the 2020 election...CBS IS FAKE NEWS!"....Trump on seeing Stephen Colbert interviewed on PBS: "Why would they be wasting time and the public's money on this complete and total loser?...He is not funny. He is not wise...He is very boring."....Trump: "Neil Cavuto, Fox's Lowest Rated Anchor, is one of the WORST on Television. I actually prefer the losers at CNN and MSDNC!"....Trump: "OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM IS CORRUPT AND DISCREDITED."....Trump on Harris: "Lyin' Kamala just put out a request for another Debate because they lost so badly."...Donald Trump Jr. on why his father won't accept: "I don't think he can have a chance at getting a fair debate. I don't think there's moderators our there that would do that."....Stephen Miller on Walz: "A full-blown, radical-left communist...with his fake, smug smile, his fake phony nonexistent charm...Tim Walz's job is to be the Jack Kevorkian for America...to be the assisted-suicide doctor, to lean over charmingly by the bedside of America and give it a fatal injection."....Fox host Greg Gutfeld on members of Jan 6 committee: "Put those jerks behind bars."....Rep. James Talerico: "I think if Donald Trump and JD Vance met Jesus today, they would ridicule him as a single, childless hippie."....Sen. Lindsey Graham on Harris: "I think she's a mile wide and an inch deep."....Trump: "There's something wrong and I don't know what it is but there is something missing. Kamala Harris is a stupid person...She's ruined our nation....She has no idea what the hell she is doing...A one-woman wrecking ball...She's grossly incompetent...She even wants to legalize fentanyl."....Mark Cuban: "All we've seen Trump do is hire relatives. RNC? Here comes the daughter-in-law...The family business is now the Republican Party."....Gov. Josh Shapiro: "I don't think Trump is a serious person."....Vance: "Kamala is why we have sky-high inflation."....Vance on his lying about Haitians in Springfield, Ohio eating pets: "It was the only way to get those a-holes in the media to even LOOK at this story."....Rep. Clay Higgins on Youngstown Haitians suing Vance and Trump for lying: "All these thugs better get their mind right and their ass out of the country by January 20th."....Harris spokesperson Ian Sams: "Trump has invented a dystopia which only he lives in...He spends all his time trashing the country."....Trump on California: "A symbol of our nation's decline...Crime-ridden...Ruined...She's going to do the same to the United States."....former CA State Assembly speaker Anthony Rendon: "It's hardly 'Blade Runner' here."....Charlie Sykes on Trump: "Is making the calculation that he doesn't have to talk about policy, that he doesn't have to be coherent, that he doesn't have to be decent, that all he has to do is throw out his various versions of reality and somehow that's going to be enough."....New Right activist and Vance friend Curtis Yarvin: "You need a national CEO; a national CEO is called a dictator. If Americans want to change their government they're going to have to get over their dictator phobia."....Mary L. Trump: "My uncle sees violence committed on his behalf as the ultimate sign of love and loyalty. He wants Americans to bleed -- for him."....Andrew Sullivan on Trump: "The most shameless charlatan in American political history...He is unfit in every respect to be president of the United States."....Trump on Biden, 2020: "If he's elected, the stock market will crash."....
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September 11, 2024
....Liz Cheney on Trump and Vance: "Women around this country have had enough...This is my diplomatic way of saying it: They're misogynistic pigs."....Trump on debate: "That was incredible. So many things I said were debunked, totally debunked."....Trump on ABC: "The most dishonest news organization, and that's saying a lot...They ought to take away their license."....Joe Scarborough: "It's rich for Republicans to blame the ref when they can't make a single shot."....Gov. Josh Shapiro: "I'm a sports guy, and I think any time a team is whining about the refs, it's because they lost."....Trump on Harris: "People don't go to her rallies -- there's no reason to go -- and the people that do go, she's busing them in and paying them to be there."....Trump on 2020 election: "Rampant cheating and skullduggery."....Trump on the U.S.: "I would like to think God thinks I'm going to straighten out our country. Our country is so sick...Horrible...Our country is going to hell...We are a failing nation. We are in serious decline...We are laughed at all over the world. We are going to end up in a third world war. We have a nation that is dying."....Gov. Tim Walz: "My God, every time I hear Donald Trump give a speech, it's like the next screenplay for Mad Max or something. They are rooting against America."....Trump adviser Tim Murtaugh on follow-up debate: "We have another one already on the books to be hosted by NBC on September 25. We'll see if Kamala Harris shows up to that."....Eric Trump on Harris's debate strategy: "Lots of generic talk about absolutely nothing."....J.D. Vance: "The American people are smart, and Kamala Harris talks to them like they're children."....Heather Cox Richardson on Trump in debate: "He ran down every rabbit hole and appeared unable to finish a thought."....Rev. Al Sharpton: "He had the nightmare of his life that he had to shake hands with a black woman as an equal, and he couldn't get it back together after that."....Michelle Cottle: "He sounded like your unhinged grandpa."....Jonathan Meacham: "Do you want to give the nuclear codes back to the "dog-eating" guy?"....Matt Labash: "Even if Harris had stumbled out drunk and dribbled down her blouse, Trump still might have lost the debate for himself."....Michael Beschloss: "After this night -- not simply a debate but a demolition derby -- it would make sense for Trump to begin making serious plans for retirement."....Erick Erickson: "Trump lost the debate, and whining about the moderators doesn't change it...He lost because of his own performance while his lips were moving, not theirs."....John Heilemann on Trump in debate: "That is someone who has Lost His Marbles."....Chris Christie on Trump debate team: "Whoever prepared Donald Trump should be fired."....Kamala Harris: "Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people. So let's be clear about that, and clearly he is having a very difficult time processing that."....former Trump fixer and attorney Michael Cohen: "When you see the accordion hands start going, what that means is that he's lying."....Trump on E. Jean Carroll: "I should be suing her for defamation."....Trump on immigrants: "Our country is being poisoned...They're going into the classrooms and taking disease, and they don't even speak English. It's crazy."....Trump on January 6th committee: "Liz Cheney and the others should be prosecuted for what they did, but Comrade Kamala is even worse!"....Mehdi Hasan: "On the one hand, Dick Cheney should be on trial at The Hague. On the other hand, EVEN Dick fricking Cheney recognizes that Trump is an existential threat to American democracy as we know it. This is not a left-right issue."....Werner Herzog on the U.S.: "You are waking up, as Germany once did, to the awareness that 1/3 of your people would kill another 1/3, while 1/3 watches."....Fox host Greg Gutfeld: "How can you not be in favor of Trump?...This is a moment you've got to ask yourself: Are you going to join the pirate ship or the pontoon of pansies?"....Fmr. Navy admiral Steve Abbott on Trump: "He is not a disaster waiting to happen, he's a disaster which has already happened. He puts the country at substantial risk."....Robert Gates, defense secretary under Obama and George W. Bush: "I believe Mr. Trump is beyond repair."....9/11 memorial service attendee to Trump, the morning after debate: "Where were you for 20 years? I've been here. Where were you?"....
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August 27, 2024
radio host Mark Levin at start of DNC: "What's the convention for? Maybe just a big marijuana party."....J.D. Vance on Kamala Harris: "She's not running a political campaign, she's running a movie."....Rep. Nancy Mace on Harris: "I will say Kuh-MALL-uh's name any way that I want to...What's disgusting to women is her disrespect of women. She doesn't know what a woman is."....Lara Trump on Harris: "She has failed upward her entire career."....Trump: "If Comrade Kamala gets another four years, millions more jobs will VANISH overnight, and inflation will completely destroy our Country. YOUR LIFE SAVINGS WILL BE WIPED OUT."....Bill Clinton on Trump: "He creates chaos and then he curates it, as if it were precious art."....Rep. Jasmine Crockett: "Kamala Harris has a resume. Donald Trump has a rap sheet. She presides over the Senate, while he keeps our national secrets next to his thinking chair."....Hillary Rodham Clinton: "Donald Trump fell asleep at his own trial. When he woke up, he'd made his own kind of history -- the first person to run for president with 34 felony convictions."....Tomi Lahren on HRC: "She is the Christmas fruit cake of American politics. She simply will not go away."....Trump on Harris: "We're not going to have a socialist president. Especially a female."....Biden: "Crime will keep coming down when we put a prosecutor in the Oval Office instead of a convicted felon."....Laura Ingraham on Harris: "Kamala the Killjoy...Socialism with a smile."....former Rep. Adam Kinzinger: "Donald Trump is a weak man pretending to be strong. He is a small man pretending to be big. He is a faithless man pretending to be righteous. He's a perpetrator who can't stop playing the victim."....Fox host Greg Gutfeld on Gov. Tim Walz: "The first white DEI hire."....Mesa, AZ Republican major John Giles, at DNC: "I feel more at home here than in today's Republican Party. The GOP has been kidnapped by extremists and devolved into a cult...John McCain's Republican Party is gone, and we don't owe a damn thing to what's been left behind."....Trump on Josh Shapiro: "The highly overrated Jewish governor of the Great Commonwealth of PA."....Sen. Raphael Warnock on Trump: "I saw him holding the Bible and endorsing the Bible as if it needed his endorsement. He should try reading it."....Trump: "Comrade Kamala Harris, the Radical Left Marxist who stole the nomination from Crooked Joe...She will destroy our Country, just like she destoyed San Francisco and California!"....Michelle Obama on Trump: "It's his same old con. Doubling down on ugly, misogynistic, racist lies as a substitute for real ideas and solutions that will actually make people's lives better."....Matt Walsh: "Amanda Gorman is the one single most compelling piece of evidence that our national average IQ has plummeted."....Harris on Trump and Vance: "Simply put, they are out of their minds."....Admiral William McRaven to Trump: "Through your actions, you have embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage, and, worst of all, divided us as a nation."....Trump: "I am much better looking than her. I think I'm a better-looking person than Kamala."....Maureen Dowd on Trump: "Richie Rich."....UAW President Shawn Fain: "Both Trump and Elon Musk want working class people to sit down and shut up, and they laugh about it openly. It's disgusting, illegal, and totally predictable from these two clowns."....Trump spokesperson Stephen Cheung on Harris: "Is as relatable as a worn-out couch."....Trump on Harris: "There will be no future under Comrade Kamala Harris, because she will take us into a Nuclear World War III!"....biographer Tim O'Brien on Trump: "Crypt keeper...Every time he opens the door, people spill out from the 1980s, whether it's Roger Stone or Rudy Giuliani...None of his tastes have been updated in decades."....Hulk Hogan: "Do you want me to body-slam Kamala Harris? You want me to drop a leg on Kamala? Is Kamala a chameleon? Is she Indian?"....Trump on Dems: "Threw [Biden] out of office. It was a vicious COUP."....Trump on the future: "Four more years, you know what? It'll be fixed, it'll be fine, you won't have to vote anymore."....Barack Obama on a second Trump administration: "Four more years of bluster and bumbling and chaos. We have seen that movie before. And we all know that the sequel is usually worse."....J.D. Vance: "What won't Stolen Valor Tim Walz lie about?"....Trump on Harris: "Kamabla...She's not a smart person."....2024 endorser Tulsi Gabbard on Trump in 2018: "Saudi Arabia's bitch."....Rep. Jasmine Crockett on Harris and Trump: "She has lived out the American Dream while he has been America's nightmare."....Trump on illiegal immigrants: "Savage monsters."....Trump: "The migrants that Harris let in are raping our women."....Trump Campaign post: "Import the Third World. Become the Third World."....Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker: "Donald Trump thinks that we should trust him on the economy because he claims to be very rich. But take it from an actual billionaire. Trump is rich in only one thing: Stupidity."....Trump: "If you think things are expensive now, they will get 100 times WORSE if Kamala gets four years as president...EVERY American will be taxed up to 80% of their income!"....Maureen Dowd: "Trump loves being embraced by a Kennedy -- even an off-kilter one. But the former president's motto is more like, 'Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for me.'"....Borowitz fake headline: "Entire Kennedy Family Changes Last Name."....former Rep. Adam Kinzinger: "I just can't wait until we flush him down the toilet of history and never talk about Donald Trump again."....Trump on U.S. if Harris wins: "Our country's going to die."....media advisory from Harris campaign: "TODAY: Donald Trump to Ramble Incoherently and Spread Dangerous Lies in Public, but at Different Home."....
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August 13, 2024
....Rep. Mike Lawler on Democrats: "A party that hates this country."....J.D. Vance on Dems: "They say it's racist to do anything."....Nancy Pelosi on GOP: "A cult to a thug, and that thug would be Donald Trump."....Robert Reich: "There's no longer a middle. When the Republican Party has adopted authoritarian fascism, what does it mean to be 'too far to the left'?"....Trump adviser Stephen Miller: "Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are the number one traffickers of children, girls into sex slavery, on planet Earth."....Trump on the US: "Bacon has quadrupled. You can't order bacon. You can't order anything. We're living horribly."....George Conway: "What we're seeing now is...the final implosion of Donald Trump...It's like Hitler when Hitler was moving around divisions that didn't exist in the last 10 days of the war, in the Führer Bunker."....Trump on Harris: "She can't do a news conference. She doesn't know how to do a news conference. She's not smart enough to do a news conference."....Mary L. Trump on her uncle: "This man is a monster who means all of us harm."....J.D. Vance in 2016 letter to friend: "I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn't be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he's America's Hitler. How's that for discouraging?"....Gov. Tim Walz on Trump and Vance: "These guys are just creepy and weird as hell. But we're not afraid of weird people. We're a little bit creeped out, but we're not afraid."....Fox host Jesse Watters on Walz: "A freak in sheep's clothing."....Sen. Josh Hawley on Walz: "Gov. Angry Old Man."....Pete Buttigieg: "Trump just gave a news conference where he told 160 lies. That frankly is impressive in terms of being able to physically do that. It's like the Olympics of lying."....Jon Stewart on Trump: "The Michael Jordan of lying."....Trump on NYT reporter Maggie Haberman: "Maggot Hagermann should apologize for Fake & Fraudulent writing on the Russia, Russia, Russia HOAX, along with many other of her poorly written and badly researched stories."....John Bolton: "I think that Putin essentiallly thinks Trump is an easy mark."....Vance on Harris: "A fundamentally fake person."....Trump on Harris: "So pathetic."....Trump on the US: "Our economy is shattered, our border has been erased. We're a nation in decline."....Elon Musk on Harris: "Is quite literally a communist."....Trump on Harris-Vance: "Would want this country to go communist immediately, if not sooner."....Trump: "Tim Walz would be the worst VP in history! Even worse than Dangerously Liberal and Crooked Kamala Harris -- HE'S THAT BAD."....Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt: "The Harris-Walz dream is every American's nightmare."....Vance on Harris: "Everywhere she goes, chaos and uncertainty follow."....Trump on Walz: "He'll unleash HELL ON EARTH and open our borders to the worst criminals imaginable."....Andrew Junker: "Harris-Walz will give fourth graders free lunches, while Trump-Vance will force them to give birth. It's as simple as that."....NYer's Susan Glasser: "Walz owns a dog AND a cat. Basic nightmare for Trump and Vance, the most anti-pet ticket in American history."....Donald Trump Jr. on Paris Olympics: "With the ever predictable (and seemingly Satanic to me) drag queen opening ceremonies and neverending BS, no one I know even thinks about them beyond maybe watching some highlights."....Trump on Harris: "She wants no 'Merry Christmas!'"....