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.

  • September 5, 2017

    Ron Reagan Jr. on Trump: "You can't control a president who is pathological in his behavior...He's not behaving as a normal grown-up does."....former Bush WH aide Peter Wehner on Trump: "What's playing out is a psychological drama...He seems to draw psychic energy from creating chaos and disorder."....UN Ambassador Nikki Haley on Kim Jong Un: "Begging for war."....Pastor James David Manning on Trump: "He's a demon."....FL GOP consultant Rick Wilson on Trump: "It's pretty obvious that everyone around him knows he's crazy. His team knows that he's not mentally stable."....Phoenix mayor Greg Stanton: "America is hurting. And it is hurting largely because Trump has doused racial tensions with gasoline."....Al Sharpton: "We are in a poisonous atmosphere that is being increased by the president of the United States. It's like turning on the gas in a room. Any match could lead to an explosion."....media attorney Charles Tobin: "Trump has the bully pulpit, and he has used it like a bully...There is a whole poisonous truth-doubting atmosphere permeating our society."....labor leader Dolores Huerta on Trump: "Gives license to all the racism that already exists..."....Trevor Noah: "For a guy who's not racist, Donald Trump sure has a lot of racist friends."....Alexandra Ellerbeck of Committee to Protect Journalists: "There is no longer any attempt by this administration to have the United States stand as a model for press freedom or to encourage press freedom abroad."....Reporters Without Borders' Margaux Ewen on Trump: "Emboldens authoritarian leaders to call articles they don't like 'fake news.' The rhetoric in the world is increasingly mimicking that of Trump. They no longer fear the consequences."....Trump on NAFTA: "One of the worst trade deals ever signed, at any time, anywhere in the world."....George Clooney on Trump: "In over his head and incapable."....Kim Kardashian on Trump: "Anyone can run the U.S. better. My daughter would be better."....Matt Taibbi: "Life in the Trump era is like the president's favorite medium, Twitter: an endless scroll of half-connected little anger Chiclets rapidly spinning us all into madness and conflict, with no end in sight."....Andrew Sullivan on Twitter: "A desiccating swarm of like-mindedness, moving as a single mutating mass, shimmering with every minuscule ripple in the news cycle, destroying all perspective, undermining learning, destroying the very process of reading, and deeply corrosive of a liberal society."....
  • August 27, 2017

    Anderson Cooper on Trump: "The world's biggest victim, trapped inside the body of the world's most powerful man."....Joe Scarborough on Trump remarks on media: "Stalinist."....Thomas E. Ricks: "Is acting in an un-American fashion when he calls any reporter who doubts him an enemy of the people."....Eugene Robinson: "A vile, cynical and disgusting lie."....Jim VandeHei: "Despicable, extremely deceptive, and dangerous."....Sen. Bob Corker: "The president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful."....Newt Gingrich on Trump: "Like a quarterback who goes out and throws the ball down to the other side and fumbles on the first play of every possession."....Matt Taibbi on Trump: "The first president in history to flunk the Don't Hug Nazis rule...If he had a tenth of the managerial skills of Hitler we'd be in impossibly deep s*** right now."....Ann Coulter on Trump: "He does have flaws, and one of them is his vast, yawning narcissism."....Nicolle Wallace on Steve Bannon: "The biggest crybaby I've ever seen in my life."....Robert Silverman on Mayweather-McGregor fight: "The perfect sporting event for this stupid and ugly moment in time."....
  • August 17, 2017

    Sen. Chris Murphy on Trump: "Just stopped on roadside to read POTUS remarks. I nearly threw up...Purposely coddles Nazis and racists."....The Daily Show: "Today is the day Donald Trump became president of the Confederacy."....Joe Scarborough on Trump: "David Duke in the White House."....former RNC chairman Michael Steele: "A big middle finger to the country in so many ways."....Fox News commentator Charles Krauthammer: "What Trump did today is a moral disgrace."....NY Daily News headline: "Sympathy For The Devils."....Chicago Sun-Times: "Fake President."....GOP strategist Steve Schmidt: "What a disgrace...The moral failure is complete and it's almost irredeemable."....J.K. Rowling: "One good thing about that abomination of a speech: it's now impossible for any Trump supporter to pretend they don't know what he is."....conservative radio host Charlie Sykes: "A moral dumpster fire."....Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell: "There are no good neo-Nazis."....Morning Joe co-host Willie Geist on GOP office-holders: "They're scared of the president on Twitter, so they won't stand up against the Klan and the Nazis? How pathetic is that?"....Mike Huckabee: "POTUS couldn't be more explicit in condemning racist thugs. Will critics be satisfied? Of course not! They can't see past THEIR hate."....former George W. Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer: "There are no very fine Nazis or Klan members, zero."....LeBron James: "Hate has always existed in America...but Donald Trump just made it fashionable again."....NFL player Chris Long on Charlottesville demonstrators: "Evolution will favor the self assured...not man-babies with torches or people playing 'militia.'"....Obama WH communications director Dan Pfeiffer: "It's hard to compare Obama and Trump or Trump and any other sentient being with an ounce of empathy or self-awareness."....former VT Gov. Howard Dean on Trump: "I think this guy is deeply ill. I really do."....Trump to CNN reporter Jim Acosta: "I like real news, not fake news. You're fake news."....David Corn on Trump "racism is evil" remarks: "A con job."....former McCain chief of staff Mark Salter: "A team of the country's most eminent behavioral psychologists, cultural historians, statesmen and clergy could have been asked to design the worst leader imaginable for this moment and Trump would have exceeded their imaginations."....Seth Meyers on Trump: "His brain disease makes it impossible for him to denounce anyone who supports him...He showed us again who he really is: a lying racist who's desperate for praise."....
  • August 14, 2017

    German chancellor Angela Merkel on Charlottesville white-supremacist violence: "Absolutely repulsive -- naked racism."....Sen. John McCain: "White supremacists aren't patriots, they're traitors."....Sen. Cory Booker on Trump remarks: "Demonstrated a hateful hypocrisy."....Charlottesville mayor Michael Signer on Trump: "Had his opportunity and he whiffed."....former Bill Clinton aide Keith Boykin: "It took Trump 54 minutes to condemn Merck CEO Ken Frazier, but after several days he still has not condemned murdering white supremacists."....NY Times editorial board: "Mr. Trump is alone in modern presidential history in his willingness to summon demons of bigotry and intolerance in service to himself."....former GOP Sen. Gordon Humphrey on Trump: "Impaired by a seriously sick psyche...He is sick of mind, impetuous, arrogant, belligerent and dangerous."....Michael Moore on Trump presidency: "A firehouse of s*** in our faces."....Trump on Bill Clinton North Korea policy: "Weak and ineffective."....North Korea on Trump threats: "A load of nonsense."....NK Gen. Kim Rak Gyom: "Sound dialogue is not possible with such a guy bereft of reason."....NYT editorial board on Trump: "Can't get legislation passed on anything much bigger than naming a post office...Incompetence and futile bullying."....Trump: "How much longer will the failing NYTimes, with its big losses and massive unfunded liability (and non-existent sources), remain in business?"....constituent to Rep. Doug LaMalfa at town hall: "I hope you suffer the same painful fate as those millions that you have voted to remove from health care. May you die in pain."....Michael Steele on Trump: "Attacking the Senate Majority Leader of your own party is utterly incomprehensible and completely wrongheaded."....Trump: "Never in U.S. history has anyone lied or defrauded voters like Senator Richard Blumenthal...A phony Vietnam con artist...He cried like a baby and begged forgiveness like a child."....Blumenthal: "I cannot explain the president's obsession with me or any of the other targets of his tweets...He has used the same tactics in seeking to bully and intimidate the special counsel Bob Mueller."....J.K. Rowling on Trump: "Here you are, lying right in front of us."....former Sen. Alan Simpson on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: "A nut house."....former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond on Trump: "A complete and utter nincompoop."....Trump on media: "No politician in history -- and I say this with great surety -- has been treated worse or more unfairly."....Jake Tapper on Trump "fake news" claims: "Almost every single time he's used that term, the news has been accurate. It's just been news he doesn't like."....
  • August 6, 2017

    Peggy Noonan on Anthony Scaramucci: "Just another drama queen for this warring, riven, incontinent White House."....Historian Joshua Zeitz on Trump and Scaramucci: "It's 'Team of Rivals' but for morons."....Ana Navarro: "I've literally had zits that lasted longer than Scaramucci did in the White House."....Lawrence O'Donnell on Trump: "The laziest, most ignorant president in history."....James Woods on Trump hatred: "Pathological."....Trump on New Hampshire: "A drug-infested den."....NH Sen. Maggie Hassan on Trump comment: "Disgusting."....Former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond on Trump: "The Grand Canyon is a minor crevice compared to the vast chasm of ignorance of that man."....Al Gore on the news: "Like a nature hike through the Book of Revelations."....Historian Jon Meacham on Trump: "Has an incredibly casual relationship with the facts and with the truth."....Conservative commentator Charlie Sykes on Trump: "Diarrhea of lies...How needy must this man be?"....Former Trump adviser Roger Stone: "Let's face it, John McCain's a piece of s***."....GOP strategist Rick Wilson: "Donald Trump the television character -- decisive, worldly, smart, and always in control -- is precisely the opposite of Donald Trump the man. The real Donald Trump is moody, needy, shallow, and impulsive."....Joe Scarborough: "The Trump Team's attitude from Day 1 has been: 1. History is burdensome. 2. The world began on January 20, 2017."....Trump on AG Jeff Sessions: "VERY weak."....Peggy Noonan on Trump: "His public brutalizing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions isn't strong, cool and deadly; it's limp, lame and blubbery."....Alex Jones on John Oliver: "Your ratings are in the toilet. You're a joke."....Oliver on Jones: "The Walter Cronkite of shrieking bats*** guerilla clowns."....