Ty Cobb — the former Hogan & Lovells partner who left the hallowed halls of Biglaw to serve as special counsel in the first Trump White House, and has since made it his apparent life’s mission to say out loud what everyone else is merely thinking — was back on MSNow’s The Beat with Ari Melber, and wow, did he have some things to get off his chest.
As we’ve covered extensively around here, Cobb (along with his magnificent signature mustache) has developed a folksy but devastating habit of cutting through the right-wing noise and telling cable news audiences exactly what the situation is. This latest appearance was no different.
Asked about the current state of affairs inside the Trump orbit, Cobb offered a genuinely chilling observation rooted in his firsthand experience. “When I was there, his narcissism would be on display because he would passionately want to do something that seemed out of bounds but people like Gen. Kelly and Gen. Mattis, Nikki Haley, were there to talk him out of it,” he explained. The problem, of course, is that those people — the so-called “adults in the room,” a phrase Cobb himself famously used back in his White House days — are long gone. “They don’t have those guardrails there today,” he lamented.
And it gets more alarming from there. Cobb raised the specter of bad actors filling that vacuum, arguing there “should be some concern that people are using this, using his incapacity, to manipulate decisions.” As a concrete example, he pointed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, suggesting Netanyahu did exactly that “in connection with the decision to go into Iran.” That’s a pretty significant allegation! The idea that a foreign leader is effectively steering American foreign policy by exploiting a cognitively diminished president is not a small thing to say on cable television. And yet, here we are.
On Trump’s general mental state and behavior, Cobb did not exactly offer reassuring takes. Trump’s “vocabulary has shrunk, he’s resorted to profanity and threats, totally impulsive,” Cobb said. He pointed to Trump’s attacks on the late filmmaker Rob Reiner and former Special Counsel Robert Mueller, as well as his ongoing feud with Pope Leo XIV as behavior that “just shows you how crazy this man is.” Hard to argue with that breakdown, honestly.
Cobb also drew a contrast that should probably be getting more airtime. He distinguished between former President Joe Biden’s decline, which he characterized as a “benevolent grandpa losing his memory,” and Trump’s altogether different situation, which he described as “malignant narcissism.” That’s not a semantic distinction. One is a man struggling with the ordinary cruelties of aging. The other is something considerably more dangerous.
None of this is entirely new ground for Cobb. He’s been sounding these alarms with increasing urgency, calling Trump a threat to constitutional norms, warning of justifiable paranoia among Trump’s critics, and labeling the president flatly “gone.” The drumbeat has been consistent. What’s changed is the stakes, and apparently, Cobb’s willingness to name names — including heads of state — when it comes to who might be capitalizing on the chaos.
The people with actual power to do something about any of this remain, as ever, conspicuously silent. But at least Cobb keeps showing up.
You can watch the full interview below.
The post Former Biglaw Partner Warns There Are No ‘Guardrails’ Left Around Trump — And Someone Is Taking Advantage appeared first on Above the Law.
Ty Cobb — the former Hogan & Lovells partner who left the hallowed halls of Biglaw to serve as special counsel in the first Trump White House, and has since made it his apparent life’s mission to say out loud what everyone else is merely thinking — was back on MSNow’s The Beat with Ari Melber, and wow, did he have some things to get off his chest.
As we’ve covered extensively around here, Cobb (along with his magnificent signature mustache) has developed a folksy but devastating habit of cutting through the right-wing noise and telling cable news audiences exactly what the situation is. This latest appearance was no different.
Asked about the current state of affairs inside the Trump orbit, Cobb offered a genuinely chilling observation rooted in his firsthand experience. “When I was there, his narcissism would be on display because he would passionately want to do something that seemed out of bounds but people like Gen. Kelly and Gen. Mattis, Nikki Haley, were there to talk him out of it,” he explained. The problem, of course, is that those people — the so-called “adults in the room,” a phrase Cobb himself famously used back in his White House days — are long gone. “They don’t have those guardrails there today,” he lamented.
And it gets more alarming from there. Cobb raised the specter of bad actors filling that vacuum, arguing there “should be some concern that people are using this, using his incapacity, to manipulate decisions.” As a concrete example, he pointed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, suggesting Netanyahu did exactly that “in connection with the decision to go into Iran.” That’s a pretty significant allegation! The idea that a foreign leader is effectively steering American foreign policy by exploiting a cognitively diminished president is not a small thing to say on cable television. And yet, here we are.
On Trump’s general mental state and behavior, Cobb did not exactly offer reassuring takes. Trump’s “vocabulary has shrunk, he’s resorted to profanity and threats, totally impulsive,” Cobb said. He pointed to Trump’s attacks on the late filmmaker Rob Reiner and former Special Counsel Robert Mueller, as well as his ongoing feud with Pope Leo XIV as behavior that “just shows you how crazy this man is.” Hard to argue with that breakdown, honestly.
Cobb also drew a contrast that should probably be getting more airtime. He distinguished between former President Joe Biden’s decline, which he characterized as a “benevolent grandpa losing his memory,” and Trump’s altogether different situation, which he described as “malignant narcissism.” That’s not a semantic distinction. One is a man struggling with the ordinary cruelties of aging. The other is something considerably more dangerous.
None of this is entirely new ground for Cobb. He’s been sounding these alarms with increasing urgency, calling Trump a threat to constitutional norms, warning of justifiable paranoia among Trump’s critics, and labeling the president flatly “gone.” The drumbeat has been consistent. What’s changed is the stakes, and apparently, Cobb’s willingness to name names — including heads of state — when it comes to who might be capitalizing on the chaos.
The people with actual power to do something about any of this remain, as ever, conspicuously silent. But at least Cobb keeps showing up.
You can watch the full interview below.
