Ty Cobb on Trump's Admiration for Putin
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 26 February 2024
⏱️ 16 minutes
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Summary
Ty Cobb represented the Trump White House during the height of the Mueller-Russia probe, so he has a unique insight into the former President’s admiration for all things Putin, and his refusal to condemn the dissident Alexey Navalny’s death in prison. Trump’s response, bizarrely, was to compare his own legal troubles to Navalny’s political persecution and likely murder. Yet Cobb still feels certain that Russia has nothing concrete on Trump, which was the question of the Mueller investigation. Rather, Putin “has what Trump wants,” he tells David Remnick, “total control and adulation and riding the horse with his shirt off.” His quest to secure that power, seemingly by any means necessary, has made Trump “the greatest threat to democracy we’ve ever seen.” Cobb has been following Trump’s myriad of criminal cases closely, and he has concluded that only the January 6th case concerning Trump’s attempt to prevent the peaceful transfer of power has the potential to derail his political career. If a trial decision is not reached before the November election, and Trump were to win again, he can order the Justice Department to dismiss the case, and “it will be as though it never existed."
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| 1:12.6 | This is the political scene, and I'm David Remnick. |
| 1:21.7 | Seven years ago, Ty Cobb was a partner in a big international law firm, prominent, well-connected. |
| 1:29.1 | Then he got a phone call. |
| 1:30.9 | Would he give up his job to go work for the White House for a while? |
| 1:34.3 | The client was Donald Trump, and the issue was Russian interference in the 2016 election. |
| 1:39.7 | Trump and many others were being investigated in a probe headed by Robert Mueller, the former FBI director. |
| 1:46.0 | In the end, some of Trump's circle were indicted. Some even went to jail. But Trump himself |
| 1:52.3 | avoided indictment and dismissed the entire thing as a witch hunt. But Ty Cobb went on to call |
| 1:58.4 | Robert Mueller an American hero and Trump a threat to democracy. |
| 2:03.6 | And one of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, well, sir, if we don't pay and we're attacked by Russia, will you protect us? I said, you didn't pay, you're delinquent? |
| 2:16.0 | He said, yes, let's say that happened. |
| 2:18.7 | No, I would not protect you. |
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