Fact Check

Former White House lawyer Ty Cobb said Trump is 'worse than anyone in our history'

Cobb, who worked as a White House lawyer during the first Trump administration, made the statement in a private comment on an acquaintance's post.

by Anna Rascouët-Paz, Published July 7, 2025


Image courtesy of Flickr user John Mathew Smith under Creative Commons license


Claim:
In early July 2025, former Trump White House lawyer Ty Cobb said Trump was "worse than anyone in our history."
Rating:
Correct Attribution

About this rating


In early July 2025, a supposed quote by Ty Cobb, a lawyer and former member of the White House legal team during the first administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, circulated online. In it, Cobb allegedly said Trump was "worse than anyone in our history."

For example, a post on Facebook relayed the long quote (archived):

The post, which included a photograph of Cobb, read in part:

[Trump} (sic) 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. 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).

The post had garnered 1,000 reactions and 16,000 reshares as of this writing. The quote also appeared on X and Reddit.

Indeed, Cobb confirmed the quote was correctly attributed. "I didn't realize it was being so widely circulated," he said in an email.

Cobb added he had written these words in response to an acquaintance's private post on Facebook. While Cobb asked Snopes not to publish the exchange to respect the person's privacy, Snopes was able to see the original comment and verified that the text internet users reproduced and shared matched what Cobb wrote almost word for word — 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.


By Anna Rascouët-Paz

Anna Rascouët-Paz is based in Brooklyn, fluent in numerous languages and specializes in science and economic topics.


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