Ty Cobb, in his first interview since joining the team representing President Donald Trump related to the Russia investigation, explained why he agreed to work with the president and what he expects to do.

“My dad was a Navy fighter pilot and I grew up in rural Kansas,” Cobb said as he boarded a flight for his Charleston, South Carolina, home on Friday. “If the president asks you, you don’t say no. I have rocks in my head and steel balls.”

The White House initially reached out to Cobb, a Hogan Lovells partner, about the counsel position in early June. He was most attracted to the job because it was “an impossible task with a deadline,” he said. He then mentioned several other experiences he’s had in his career, which allowed him to work in public service as a prosecutor and as special trial counsel in an independent investigation of the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the ‘90s. Some even put him in a position where others threatened his life, he said.