HEALTH: "Clearly insane," the lawyer said!

THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 2026

But also, the clinical therapist's tale: "Clearly insane," the lawyer said on Tuesday night, speaking to Jim Acosta

The lawyer used some startling language. We take you to Mediaite's report about the lawyer's remarks:

Ex-Trump Lawyer Calls President ‘Clearly Insane’: ‘I Think He’s Gone’

Former Trump White House lawyer Ty Cobb called the president “clearly insane” and argued his last night social media posts only further prove he’s mentally “gone.”

Cobb joined Acosta on his podcast The Jim Acosta Show on Tuesday evening where he blasted his former client, arguing his “screeds” on Iran and more in the dead of night on Truth Social highlight “the level of his insanity and depravity.”

“It’s not a surprise that we’re in this much trouble. It’s not a surprise given the fact that the cabinet will not invoke the 25th Amendment for a man who’s clearly insane. And this war highlights that. And these screeds that come out nightly, at 2 a.m. or 4 a.m. or whatever time Trump decides to vent without oversight, it highlights the level of his insanity and depravity,” Cobb told Acosta. 

And so on from there. Cobb had made similar comments in the recent past, as we noted in yesterday morning's report. 

On Tuesday night, he went there again. 

Ty Cobb is a (highly regarded) lawyer—but he's not a medical specialist. Also, "insane" is not a clinical term, eye-catching though it may be.  

Is something wrong with President Trump? In the aftermath of last Thursday's televised "cabinet meeting," many observers have seemed to suggest that the answer is yes. 

As we've noted in the past few days, some of these observers seemed to be suggesting that the sitting president has experienced some sort of cognitive decline. Other observers seemed to be suggesting that the president may be afflicted with some version of "mental illness." 

On Tuesday, speaking with Acosta, Cobb took the latter route. But here we go again in this most restricted of all possible journalistic worlds: 

Cobb, a lawyer, isn't an experienced medical specialist. Because our major news orgs have all agreed that issues of mental health must be avoided in the political context, everyone else we've quoted in the past few days shares that same shortcoming. 

None of the observers we've cited have been medical specialists! But hold on:

In training, and within a limited range of clinical experience, Mary L. Trump, the president's niece, actually is such a specialist.

As we noted back on March 4, Mary Trump shared her current view of her uncle's health on Thursday evening, February 26. She spoke that evening with CNN's Erin Burnett, on Erin Burnett OutFront. 

The fact that she said it doesn't mean that it's right! But Mary Trump is a doctorate-wielding clinical therapist, and these are the views she expressed:

BURNETT (2/26/26): You've known him your whole life. Do you actually see a [cognitive] decline?

MARY L. TRUMP: I do, but I think it's important to remember that Donald has never been fit in any capacity. Obviously, what we're dealing with now are age-related cognitive declines. We're dealing with physical issues that the White House tries to cover over.

But this is somebody who for decades now has had serious, undiagnosed and untreated psychiatric disorders, which are only going to worsen, especially given the pressure he's under and given the cognitive and physical declines. 

Rightly or possibly wrongly, so said Mary Trump.  She seemed to say that her uncle has experienced an obvious cognitive decline—but it isn't just any such decline. In the view of Mary Trump, it's a cognitive decline which is layered atop decades worth of "serious psychiatric disorders."

Those were her assessments. We repeat them because they were offered, not because they just have to be accurate.

Her assessments may be inaccurate, but there her assessments stand. With respect to our mainstream American discourse—with respect to the modern practice of American journalism—a further fact should be noted at this time: 

Of all the people offering recent thoughts about the state of the president's health, Mary Trump is the only such observer who can be assumed to have some basic idea what she's talking about. 

She isn't a lawyer, and she isn't a pundit; she's an actual medical specialist! For that reason, it's almost amazing that CNN allowed her to go on the air and, however briefly, offer those medical assessments. 

For decades, American news orgs have all agreed—issues of mental health must never be discussed with respect to major political figures. In our view, that was always a very good rule—until the time came when it wasn't.

Now we're engaged in a great Red-Blue civil war, along with a war in Iraq. Many observers seem to be concerned about the state of the president's health. They're concerned about the state of his cognition, perhaps about the possibility of underlying "mental disorders."

Rightly or wrongly, many people hold such concerns; many others don't. In our view, such matters are always a human tragedy—but we think observers are almost surely right when they give voice to such concerns.

He's the most powerful person on the planet. In fairness, you are allowed to voice your opinion about his health at this perilous time--but you're only allowed to do so if you aren't a medical specialist. You're allowed to opine if there's no particular reason to think you know what you're talking about!

"Clearly insane," the lawyer said—but he's only a (very capable) lawyer. In her 2020 best-selling book, Too Much and Never Enough, Mary Trump gave a detailed assessment of her uncle's (many and serious) apparent "psychopathologies." 

We've quoted what she said in that book again and again and again. You've read those assessments nowhere else. For better or worse, her assessments were uniformly disappeared by the high-end political press.

Six years later, here we are. For better or worse, our journalists continue to play an understandable but debilitating game:

Lawyers can thunder as much as they like. No medical specialists need apply!  

Cognitive decline is a human tragedy. So is (serious) "mental illness."

Is the world's most powerful person possibly tangled in some such dangerous state of affairs? For better or worse, our journalists know the rules of the game:

What might medical specialists think? Our high-end journalists all know this:

Such people must never be asked!

Tomorrow: His fascinating opinion piece carried this headline:

We’ve Stopped Noticing That Trump’s Cabinet Meetings Are Completely Insane