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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.

  • June 24, 2017

    Trump on Justice Department investigation into Russian election meddling: "The single greatest witch hunt in American political history."....Tim Wise on Trump: "A walking, talking opioid...Comes along and says...'I can take away your pain.'"....Newt Gingrich on James Comey: "Part of the sickness."....Michael Tomasky on Gingrich: "A vending machine of hate and hypocrisy."....Trump on Special Counsel Robert Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein: "Some very bad and conflicted people."....Roland Hedley: "Ross Perot's 'giant sucking sound' (of jobs going to Mexico) nothing compared to POTUS's first Cabinet meeting."....David Axelrod on Trump Cabinet meeting: "They all looked so servile...It felt very North Korean."....Trump on the actions of his Justice Department: "Phony...Sad."....Chelsea Handler: "Ivanka was supposed to be our Wonder Woman, but now we're just wondering where the f*** that woman is."....Alex Jones on mainstream media: "Tyrants."....Erin Gloria Ryan on Ivanka Trump softball interviews: "Treated like she's a precocious middle schooler on a permanent Take Your Daughter To Work Day."....Tomi Lahren on LA Resist march: "A crock of crap...A crybaby fest of bulls***."....Sen. Brian Schatz on Senate health bill: "No hearings, no women, no Democrats involved. No expert testimony, no listening to healthcare providers. This is legislative malpractice."....Nick Schager on 'Transformers: The Last Knight': "Two-and-a-half hours of racist robot torture."....
  • June 12, 2017

    Eric Trump on those who oppose his father: "To me, they're not even people. It's so, so sad."....Donald Trump Jr. on London Mayor Sadiq Khan: "Maybe he should do something about [terrorism]. Maybe he should do something to fix the problem rather than just sit there and pretend there isn't one."....Trump on Comey: "Very cowardly."....Gail Collins on Trump: "Wanders around in an ego-filled cloud, saying whatever the heck pops into his head...Has a minimal ongoing relationship with reality, let alone truth."....Corey Lewandowski on Comey: "He gave his notes to a Columbia law professor because he wasn't man enough to give the notes directly to the media."....former Kasich campaign manager John Weaver: "Trump is like a parasite that invaded the body politic."....Simon Malloy: "It's Comey's word against Trump's, and Trump's word is beyond worthless."....Mike Huckabee on executive branch: "Has emasculated itself by surrendering constantly to the idea that once the court says something, that's it."....Charles B. Pierce on Trump: "He doesn't know how to be president and he doesn't care to learn. The pivot is never coming."....Sen. Kristen Gillibrand on Trump: "Has he kept his promises? No. F*** no."....Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Trump: "I'm concerned about his fitness for office."....Keith Obermann: "Donald Trump is not of sound mind...The meaninglessness. The lack of focus, the carelessness, the self-pity, the irresponsible redefinition of the language itself..."....Trump on Comey: "False statements and lies."....Jesse Berney on Trump: "He's a toddler, but with less empathy and self-control."....Rep. Maxine Waters on Trump: "How much more reckless can he be with the power that he wields? More importantly, how long will so-called 'patriotic' Republicans participate in this charade and moral race to the bottom?"....Sean Hannity on media: "Journalism is dead and buried."....Rush Limbaugh: "The anti-Trump voting public is insane...[The media and the Democrats] have been lying to them and stoking them and fueling them up ever since the war in Iraq. They've been systematically turning people into unhinged hysterical lunatics."....Fox News' Neil Cavuto: "Mr. President, it is not the fake new media that's your problem. It's you."....Eric Trump on DNC head Tom Perez: "A total whack job."....former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder on Trump: "Has demonstrated that he doesn't understand or doesn't care how America has engaged the world for the last 70 years."....Naomi Klein on Trump: "He is undoubtedly an idiot, but do not underestimate how good he is at that."....
  • June 6, 2017

    WSJ editorial board: "The most effective opponent of the Trump Presidency is Donald J. Trump."....Maureen Dowd on Trump: "Has rattled the world with his crude manner, cruel politics, chaotic management style, authoritarian love-ins and antediluvian attitudes, cementing his image as the highchair king."....Andrew Sullivan: "Every pillar of Trump's essential character is a cardinal sin for Christians: lust, gluttony, greed, envy, anger, and pride."....Trump on Dems: "They are nothing but OBSTRUCTIONISTS!"....Joe Scarborough on Trump: "Ends up making fools of everyone who works around him."....Sean Hannity on Rachel Maddow: "The champion of pushing unhinged, bizarre, conspiracy theories."....Charles Blow on Trump in Europe: "As boorish and belligerent as it was possible to be."....Former FBI special agent Clint Watts on presidential tweets: "Terrorism only works if people are terrified. And it seems Trump's comments, above all, seek to terrify."....Trump on U.S. courts: "Slow and political!...We need the courts to give us back our rights."....Rush Limbaugh: "These judges writing some of these opinions in rejecting Trump's executive orders? It's no different than if any Tom, Dick, or Harry off the street in LA had been put on a court and given a robe and told, 'Write an opinion.'"....David Brooks on Trump Administration: "Driven solely by resentment."....Trump on Paris Accord: "A massive redistribution of United States wealth to other countries."....Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi: "Almost every schoolchild in America knows more about the climate challenge than, apparently, the POTUS does. He lives in a fact-free zone."....John Kerry on Accord withdrawal: "The president who talked about putting America first has now put America last...A global stain on our credibility...Shameful...Willful ignorance...A grotesque abdication of leadership."....Bolivian President Evo Morales on U.S.: "The main threat to Mother Earth and to life itself."....Michael Moore on Accord withdrawal: "USA to Earth: F*** YOU...I live in a rogue state."....Official from major Asian ally to Strobe Talbot, re Trump: "Washington, D.C. is now the epicenter of instability in the world."....Robert De Niro on the U.S.: "A tragic dumbass comedy."....
  • May 30, 2017

    Former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden on Jared Kushner back channel allegation: "What manner of ignorance, chaos, hubris, suspicion, contempt would you have to have to think that doing this with the Russian ambassador was a good or an appropriate idea?"....Der Spiegel on Trump: "Unfit to be president of the United States...A man free of morals...A threat to the world."....NATO expert Jorge Benitez on Trump's behavior at the Brussels meeting: "A definitive win for Putin."....David Brooks on Trump in Europe: "A perversion of American foreign policy."....Michael Daly on Trump at NATO summit: "Crass indifference...He shamed us all."....John Boehner on Trump: "Everything else he's done [besides foreign policy] has been a complete disaster."....Council on Foreign Relations fellow Max Boot on Fox News: "Tasteless conspiracy mongering...The network I once respected as a necessary antidote to liberal media now peddles craven lies and Russian disinformation."....George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson on those who embraced the Rich conspiracy: "The conservative mind, in some very visible cases, has become diseased."....Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz on Trump budget: "It's made up. You could say it's a collection of lies put together. It doesn't make any economic sense."....Rep. Louie Gohmert on CBO: "They couldn't find their rear end with two hands."....HRC on Trump budget: "An unimaginable level of cruelty...and disdain for the struggles of millions."....Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Trump budget: "As clear as it is cruel: destroy health care for tens of millions in order to give tax cuts to rich people."....Joe Scarborough on Trump: "He's like Mr. Magoo, but Mr. Magoo trying to shred the United States Constitution."....David Letterman on Trump: "A man without a core, a man without a soul. Is there a guy in there?"....Gov. Chris Christie on former Trump National Security Adviser Mike Flynn: "I wouldn't let him in the White House, let alone give him a job."....
  • May 23, 2017

    Sen. Al Franken: "I like Ted Cruz probably more than my colleagues like Ted Cruz, and I hate Ted Cruz."....John Podesta on Trump White House: "They have a sort of complete disregard for the truth."....Sen. John McCain on Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov: "Nothing but a propagandist....Had no business in the Oval Office."....Bernie Sanders: "We have a president who lies all the time. This is not normal."....Billy Bush on Trump: "Provocative statements flow like wine from him."....Simon Maloy on Trump: "Had Obama given the Saudi king a dainty little curtsy Michelle Malkin would have written an entire book around it."....NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Trump: "The president of the United States has a 12-second attention span."....Former FBI official Philip Mudd on Trump: "He's a narcissist...He doesn't represent 320 million Americans, he represents one...He should be offering a vision of the future. What does he talk about? The sissy-in-chief talks about how tough it is to be president because the media comes after him."....Sen. John McCain on Turkish security personnel beating protesters outside the Turkish ambassador's residence: "We should throw their ambassador the hell out of the United States of America...You cannot have that happen in the United States."....Pat Buchanan on the U.S.: "We rolled the dice with the future of the country. And I think it's going to come up snake eyes."....Mencius Moldbug on the U.S.: "Washington has failed. The Constitution has failed. Democracy has failed."....Michael Kinsley on Trump: "A nut and a con man."....Noam Chomsky on GOP: "A candidate for most dangerous organization in history."....David Remnick on Trump: "A Presidency of ideological meanness and unsurpassing incompetence...Came to the Presidency with a wealth of experience in the art of deceit."....Nixonland author Rick Perlstein: "The words 'on purpose' and 'Donald Trump' now feel like matter and antimatter: with him, it's all impulse."....Nicholas Kristof: "The White House has never needed more adult supervision."....Art of the Deal co-author Tony Schwartz on Trump: "Right now, he is in pure terror that he is going to lose...Being run by the part of his brain that's reactive and impulsive, not capable of reflection."....Jeff Greenfield on Trump: "A 70-year-old man-baby."....Ann Coulter on Trump hiring his kids: "That's the one fascist thing he's done."....David Brooks: "At base, Trump is an infantalist...Immaturity is becoming the dominant note of his presidency, lack of self-control his leitmotif...Perpetually desperate for approval, telling heroic fabulist tales about himself."....Billy Bush on himself: "I'd like to think if I had thought for a minute that there was a grown man detailing his sexual assault stategy to me, I'd have called the FBI...I wish I had changed the topic...but I didn't have the strength of character to do it."....Former FBI Assistant Special Agent David C. Gomez: "It's amateur night at the White House. These guys -- and Trump especially -- don't know how to not implicate themselves...You don't need a wiretap. He just comes right out and says it."....Anderson Cooper to CNN commentator Jeffrey Lord: "If [Trump] took a dump on his desk, you would defend it."....