Non Compos Mentis

“We cannot lose our democracy to these f***ing dorks. I mean, Stephen Miller is the worst. … And then you get to JD Vance, who is a failed drag queen. … He’d be so much cooler if he’d just come out.” —podcaster Jennifer Welch

Lack of Self-Awareness Award

“We have to be able to disagree without calling each other nasty names or demonizing each other.” —Barack Obama campaigning in Virginia on the same stage as Jay Jones, who wanted to kill his political opponent

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

“I think we should reduce [the] voting age to 16.” —Kamala Harris (A trip down memory lane: “What else do we know about this population, 18 through 24? They are stupid. … They make really bad decisions” —Kamala Harris, May 2014)

Friendly Fire

“No Democrat wants to hear from [Kamala Harris]. … Just get out of the way.” —Democrat strategist James Carville

“It was easier to get Donald Trump on the phone than to get the deputy press secretary for the Kamala Harris campaign.” —ABC News’s Jonathan Karl on having called Trump directly on election night

Theater of the Absurd

“One of the reasons that President Trump is refusing to negotiate is because he likes the fact that the government is closed because he thinks he can exercise king-like powers. He can open up the parts of the government that he wants. He can pay the employees who are loyal to him. I mean, this is a leader who is trying to transition our government from a democracy to something much closer to a totalitarian state.” —Sen. Chris Murphy

“Donald Trump has spent more time talking to Hamas and the Chinese Communist Party than he has in talking to Democrats on Capitol Hill to end the Trump shutdown.” —House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, whose party shut down the government

What Comes Around Goes Around

“No Congress before this one has ever — ever — in history been irresponsible enough to threaten default, to threaten an economic shutdown to suggest America not pay its bills just to try to blackmail a president into giving them some concessions. … We’re not going to submit to this kind of total irresponsibility. … If Republicans do not like the law, they can go through the regular channels and processes to try to change it. That’s why we have elections. … You do not threaten the full faith and credit of the United States of America.” —Barack Obama in 2013 on the threat of a government shutdown to defund or repeal the so-called Affordable Care Act

The BIG Lies

“It appears to most reasonable observers that Donald Trump was punked on the world stage by the Chinese Communist Party.” —Rep. Hakeem Jeffries

“China has called Donald Trump’s bluff, and Donald Trump has folded.” —Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer

Delusions of Grandeur

“[Joe Biden] I think was one of the most successful presidents in the last century. … And I will defend that to my grave.” —California Gov. Gavin Newsom

Re: The Left

“Democrats’ support for programs like SNAP is now reduced to cynical control over people’s lives. This last month has shown that the party who constantly says it puts people over politics does the complete opposite.” —Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins

“Up until fairly recently, it was considered rude, and perhaps even racist or sexist, to notice that the White House press secretary was a thoroughly ineffective communicator who kept babbling barely coherent answers and offering implausible spin. But now that Jean-Pierre is on her book tour and defending her and Joe Biden’s record? [E]verybody’s lining up to take a hard whack at her like she’s a piñata.” —Jim Geraghty

For the Record

“The surge in transgender identification in recent years wasn’t the revelation of a hidden biological truth. It was a social phenomenon shaped by imitation, ideology and institutional reinforcement.” —Colin Wright

“Throughout modern political history, rising anti-Semitism has been an unmistakable marker of cultural decay.” —George Weigel