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.