Useful Idiots
“Watching Anthony Fauci before a congressional hearing taking the Fifth Amendment is just one of the most heartbreaking things I have seen in government in my lifetime. … Anthony Fauci, over a period of decades, has been an amazing public servant. … And now we are at a point where members of Congress … are on a witch hunt. … We are in a Senator Joseph McCarthy climate.” —TMZ founder Harvey Levin

“Anthony Fauci owes nothing to Republicans in the United States Senate. … Anthony Fauci is right and every one of those Republican senators is very, very wrong.” —MS NOW’s Lawrence O'Donnell

For the Record
“No Americans got blanket pardons for breaking Fauci’s dictatorial COVID mandates. They didn’t walk away with a $5 million book deal. They lost their jobs. They lost their businesses. Our children lost their schools. We all lost our freedom.” —Gary Bauer

Scaremongering
“You could create deepfakes… You might not even need to have the ICE agents at the polls if you showed those images.” —Virginia Senator Mark Warner

“[Donald Trump] is an authoritarian. He will probably try to do every possible thing he can do to make it harder for people to vote if you’re disabled, if you’re a person of color, so forth and so on.” —Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders

“Republicans have apparently concluded, led by Donald Trump, that their best course of action as it relates to the upcoming midterm election is to suppress the vote, intimidate voters, and do all they can to potentially rig the outcome.” —House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries

World’s Smallest Violin
“We’re going to be accused of being everything from Marxists to socialists to communists no matter what in the hell we do.” —Illinois Senator Dick Durbin

Fact-Check: False
“ICE itself has become a rogue agency based on a premise that is inconsistent with both the Constitution and the ideals of our country.” —Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed

Lack of Self-Awareness Award
“I’m simply not a socialist.” —Abdul El-Sayed

Hot Air
“MAGA’s outrageous policies on climate change — which is to say no policy other than drill, baby, drill — also is destroying so much agriculture in the Midwest.” —Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin

Non Compos Mentis
“What’s the one thing in the past 250 years that stands out a little bit? Maybe it’s the guy that paved over the Rose Garden and just put a f***ing Nazi eagle on the front of the f***ing White House.” —Hunter Biden

“This is the most corruptible, soft, easily manipulated president this country has ever had, and possibly the world. I don’t know that any other country is dumb enough to elect this type of dips**t with this type of record. What an indictment on the American electorate. What an indictment on those 77 million people that voted for this.” —political pundit Jennifer Welch

“The main thing that seems to be the connecting tissue between all Republicans is sadism. … It’s wanting to hurt people who don’t look like them. … This is a fascist, imperialist, terrorist death cult.” —political pundit Kyle Kulinski

Friendly Fire
“I think President Biden and Kamala Harris lost the last election because nobody believed that they were fighters. At least they believed Trump was a fighter.” —Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse

“There are folks out there that say things that just don’t make sense to the American people. … ‘Get rid of the border.’ ‘Defund the Pentagon.’ … Those things don’t make sense.” —Arizona Senator Mark Kelly

“A bunch of people sit around in the room and say, ‘How much kind of crazy s**t can we cram into our platform?’” —Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman

“If someone is frustrated in the Democratic Party, I would be frustrated with someone like Bernie Sanders. Why aren’t people angry [with] why they promoted someone like [Graham] Platner, an accused rapist? … Really, Bernie? You have no regret endorsing and [being] proud to stand with an accused rapist?” —John Fetterman

Re: The Left
“The socialists and communists did not really hijack the party. Rather, these youthful radicals were spawned and nurtured by aged Democrats. They became irate over their impotence and loss of influence — and simply upgraded the methods and message of their elders. … Socialists did not lower the bar for extremism; establishment Democrats had already destroyed that standard altogether. Given all that, the Democratic Socialists of America scarcely had to be invented.” —Victor Davis Hanson