Fact Check: Did former White House lawyer Ty Cobb say Donald Trump is 'worse than anyone in our history'?
WASHINGTON, DC: Over the years, President Donald Trump has faced furious criticism not only from political heavyweights on the opposing side but also from dissenting voices within his inner circle.
The criticism also fanned a slew of outlandish rumours that took the internet by storm. One such rumour now claimed that Ty Cobb, a lawyer who once served on Trump’s White House legal team, allegedly unleashed a blistering assessment of his former boss, branding him “worse than anyone in our history.”
The rumour has spread across the internet like a wildfire. But it is true or just hyperbole, let’s unpack the full story below.
Claims: Ty Cobb said Trump is 'worse than anyone in our history'
The whispers of Ty Cobb’s scathing criticism of Donald Trump quickly turned into headline-grabbing rumours just days after a Facebook post by J David Bethel went viral, highlighting the former White House Lawyer’s comments.
“Trump is worse than anyone in our history, in my experience and opinion. As people seem to have forgotten, I was very critical of Biden and, despite knowing him and his family well, I spent 4 years writing about his cognitive decline and weak foreign policy,” Cobb allegedly said, according to the post.
“He had competent advisors, though, including very decent men as AG and head of the FBI. While you could fairly question their effectiveness, you couldn't doubt their character.”
“Trump has real contempt for the country, appoints wholly unqualified people to key positions, and just kicked 12 million people off Medicaid, eliminated child food support, and killed worldwide healthcare efforts monitoring pandemic-producing diseases, including Ebola (among countless other dangerous things),” his comments continued.
The Facebook post has already garnered more than 1.3k likes and 21K shares as of the time of writing. The quote also appeared on X and Reddit.
Fact Check: Ty Cobb indeed said Trump is 'worse than anyone in our history'
The rumours of Ty Cobb saying that his former boss is 'worse than anyone in our history' are indeed true. The 74-year-old attorney himself confirmed to fact-checking forum Snopes that the quote was correctly attributed.
"I didn't realize it was being so widely circulated," he said in an email. He also revealed that his brutal criticism of Donald Trump was in response to an acquaintance's private post on Facebook.
Although Cobb requested that Snopes keep the exchange private out of respect for the individual involved, Snopes did review the original message and confirmed that the viral quote circulating online was nearly identical to Cobb’s actual words, except for the first word.
In his original comment, Cobb had written "He," referring to Trump, as the president had been one of the topics of the exchange.
Ty Cobb says Trump poses ‘gravest threat to democracy’
While Ty Cobb made his comments in private this time, previously, he publicly called Donald Trump the ‘gravest threat to democracy’.
In September 2024, he former White House lawyer appeared on CNN, where host Erin Burnett asked him about an argument from Trump’s legal team Tuesday that suggested a president directing SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political opponent is covered by presidential immunity.
In response, Cobb said, “I think you have to take Trump seriously because he poses the gravest threat to democracy that we’ve ever seen.”
“On the other hand, I think his legal arguments are, you know, interposed solely for delay. I think as the government’s lawyer and special counsel’s lawyer argued today that, at the end of the day, it would be very scary if there was no accountability.”
“As Trump’s counsel has argued, for the types of conduct that have been charged here, when a president tries to prevent the peaceful transfer of power and uses the levers available to him to subvert the democratic republic and the electoral system,” Cobb continued.
