Insight: “Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.” —Aesop (c. 620–564 BC)

Braying jenny: “You can’t have an acquittal unless you have a trial, and you can’t have a trial unless you have witnesses and documents — so he can say he’s acquitted, and the headlines can say ‘acquitted,’ but he’s impeached forever: branded with that, and not vindicated.” —House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

The BIG Lie: “Eleven years ago … near the bottom of the worst recession in generations, I signed the Recovery Act, paving the way for more than a decade of economic growth and the longest streak of job creation in American history.” —Barack Obama

Political futures: “I would be honored to run for vice president with the nominee. … Of course I want to serve America. Of course I want to be a patriot and do this work, and so I’d say yes.” —failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams

Tone deaf: “[The Roger Stone issue] has been … the greatest abuse of power I have ever seen at the hands of this president who has no sense of decency or understanding of the Constitution, and [Attorney General William] Barr facilitating it is beyond my comprehension. No president, no president, no president has ever intimidated an attorney general into abusing power as much as this man has.” —Joe Biden, who knows a thing or two about abuse of power

Grand delusions: “Every single solitary person that [Trump is] firing now testified under oath that … I did my job perfectly … I was honorable. Everything I did was by the numbers. And that prosecutor we fired should have been fired, period. And there was no investigation going on in Burisma.” —Joe Biden

Alpha jackass: “Legalize all the DACA students. These DACA students are more American than most Americans are.” —Joe Biden

Non compos mentis: “There’s a Yale study just out that shows that our current system, if we move to Medicare for All, we would save 68,000 lives a year. That makes the private insurance in America the eighth leading cause of death in the country.” —former Bernie Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver

Parroting American Democrat talking points: “In some countries, the laws do not allow for the existence of democracy in the true sense of the word, including the United States itself! In the U.S., which is supposedly the center of democracy … their [Electoral College system] has been shaped in a way that a person who has won fewer popular votes than another becomes the president! … Is this democracy? Is this rule of the popular vote? This is not how it works in our country.” —Iran Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei

And last… “Barack Obama said it would take a ‘magic wand’ to create the type of economy [Donald Trump] has. Now he wants to take credit for 7 million new jobs, lowest ever black unemployment, and record wage growth? In the words of the 44th president himself — you didn’t build that, Barack.” —Charlie Kirk