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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.

  • 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."....

  • 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!'"....

  • July 24, 2024

    Trump on Biden: "I kicked that old broken-down pile of crap...He's quitting the race. I got him out of there. That means we have Kamala...She's so bad. She's so pathetic."....Sen. J.D. Vance: "History will remember Joe Biden as not just a quitter, which he is, but as one of the worst presidents in the history of the United States of America. Kamala Harris is a million times worse and everybody knows it."....Rep. Matt Gaetz: "Kamala Harris isn't able to do any job."....Donald Trump Jr.: "She is even more liberal and less competent than Joe, which is really saying something."....Kellyanne Conway: "She does not speak well. She does not work hard."....Rep. Tim Burchett: "One hundred percent she was a DEI hire. When you go down that road, you get mediocrity."....Rep. Harriet Hageman: "Intellectually, just really kind of bottom-of-the-barrel."....Trump on Harris: "Dumb as a rock."....George Takei in response: "Peak Trump. Every accusation is a confession! Trump is so dumb he thinks Hannibal Lecter came from a 'political asylum.'"....Mary L. Trump on her uncle: "His childish nickname for her is 'laughing Kamala' because she feels joy, and joy is something he has never experienced and doesn't understand."....CNN's Van Jones on Gov. Ron Desantis' convention speech: "Sounded like ChatGPT for mean people."....Rep. MTG to British reporter: "You're the cause of President Trump almost being assassinated."....Eric Trump on Dems: "They literally tried to kill him this week."....radio host Joe Rogan on Secret Service: "They have organized assassinations before. And when they organize assassinations, it looks like that."....Rep. Pat Fallon to Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle at hearing: "Your horrifying ineptitude and your lack of skilled leadership is a disgrace...You should be fired immediately and go back to guarding Doritos."....Rep. MTG on Cheatle: "I've never seen a more incompetent woman in my life...She may be more than incompetent. She may be complicit."....Rep. Nancy Mace to Cheatle at hearing: "You're full of sh*t today...Would you like to use my five minutes to draft your resignation letter?"....Kevin D. Williamson on Vance: "He rails against self-interested billionaires while Peter Thiel scratches him behind the ear."....Vance in 2021: "We are effectively run in this country...by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices they've made. And they want to make the rest of the country miserable too."....Mary L. Trump on her uncle: "In Vance, he found someone who hates women as much as he does; someone who wants to control them as much as he does."....Bette Midler: "Time to ban Viagra, because if pregnancy is 'god's will,' then so is your limp dick."....Garrison Keillor on Trump: "If you saw him a few years ago attempt to comically impersonate the reporter who has cerebral palsy, that is all you need to know about the man. He is not 78, he is 13."....

  • July 12, 2024

    Trump on the U.S.: "A Third World nation. A joke."....Trump on U.S. economy: "Is collapsing into a cesspool of ruin."....Trump adviser Maxim Gorka on VP Kamala Harris: "She's a DEI hire, right? She's a woman. She's colored."....Donald Trump Jr.: "We're running against a party that wants to take away your AR-15, but they give a vegetable the nuclear codes."....Trump lawyer Alina Habba on Biden: "He can't spell 'Bob' backwards."....Trump on Biden: "He can't work because he's mentally no good. He's shot."....Marco Rubio on Biden: "A figurehead for a shadow government of leftists that are propping him up."....Trump on Biden in debate: "Choked like a dog."....Trump on Biden: "Don't feel sorry for him. He's a very bad guy."....James Carville on Trump: "The one born with a platinum spoon but no moral compass? The pathological liar? The felon? The predator found liable for sexual abuse? The wannabe dictator? The Putin lickspittle?"....Noel Casler: "Biden had a bad night. Trump had a bad 78 years."....Howard Jacobson: "Even slurring his words at eighty-one [Biden] makes more sense than Trump ever did at forty."....Rep. Chip Roy on Kamala Harris: "A DEI vice president."....Rep. Jasmine Crockett on Roy: "Ignorant as all get-out...You can see that he wishes he had half the competency of Vice President Kamala Harris."....challenger Lucas Kunce on Sen. Josh Hawley: "He thinks he should be in charge of what happens in your bedroom, your doctor's office, your workplace, your marriage, and even your own body. It's creepy. It's weird. It's Big Brother bullshit. And it sure as hell isn't his job."....Andrew Sullivan on Biden campaign: "The attempt these last two weeks to insist that the parrot is not, in fact, dead is Monty Python material...The Biden campaign is no more; it has ceased to be; it is bereft of life; it has kicked the bucket, hopped the twig, bit the dust, snuffed it, breathed its last. Now what?"....Andy Borowitz made-up headline: "Trump Screens VP Candidates for any Worrisome Signs of Self-Esteem."....James Carville: "You know how bad Chicago is going to be? We are going to sit shiva for four days."....Trump on Biden: "Everything he does is a lie."....John Fritchey: "Canada must feel like they live in an apartment above a meth lab."....

  • June 29, 2024

    Bret Stephens on Biden: "His very presence on stage felt like a form of elder abuse."....Jamelle Bouie on Trump: "Deranged and incoherent."....Matt Labash on Biden: "Sounded like a dying humidifier...like he was auditioning for the glue factory."....Frank Bruni: "I'm not sure I'd ever watched Donald Trump lie so incessantly, extravagently and unabashedly, and that's saying something."....Dan McCarthy on Biden: "Seemed to be campaigning from some other century."....Lydia Polgreen: "Trump just lied, lied, and lied, and no one...rebutted him...Trump just got away with something close to murder."....Trump adviser Chris LaCivita: "What happened tonight: Donald Trump fired Joe Biden."....Biden campaign chair Jen O'Malley: "Trump's performance tonight reminded the American people why they fired him four years ago."....Andrew Sullivan on Biden: "The ambling cadaver...This was elder abuse -- inflicted, in part, by his wife."....Rep. Robert Garcia on Trump: "All he did was lie every single time. He lied and lied and lied."....The Cut on Biden: "Clearly, he wasn't on whatever cocktail of amphetamines and Mountain Dew the Trump team had claimed for weeks he'd be taking, although some viewers wishes he were."....Sen. John Fetterman on Dems: "Chill the f*** out."....Rep. Adam Schiff on Trump's return to Capitol Hill to visit with GOP senators and House members: "Bring Your Felon to Work Day."....Andrew Egger on VP contender J.D. Vance: "Easily the most gifted and most enthusiastic s***-shoveler on the shortlist."....Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Dr. Anthony Fauci: "Does not deserve to have a license. As a matter of fact, it should be revoked, and he belongs in prison."....white nationalist Nick Fuentes: "We're not free, we're slaves...Russia has order, we have chaos and tyranny."....