Contributor Donny Deutsch told the "Morning Joe" host about his visit Monday to former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, who's currently serving a three-year prison term for campaign finance violations and other crimes related to his work for the president.
"You know, seeing Michael is, first of all, very sad," Deutsch said. "You know, what also -- he said one thing yesterday. He said, 'You know, people ask me why'd you do what you do?' And he goes, 'I don't know,' and, to me, the interesting thing is, I wonder if years from now Mike Pompeo, various Republican senators are going to be saying the same thing."
Deutsch said Cohen, the president's former campaign adviser, should serve as a cautionary tale to Trump apologists.
"He's in jail, and Donald Trump and everybody else still runs free," Deutsch said. "His days are -- it's not hard time, but he's bored, he's lonely, he's frustrated (and) isolated. It is really depressing when you go up there."
Trump associate Roger Stone goes to trial starting Tuesday in federal court on charges that he obstructed a congressional investigation into Russian hackers helped the president win the 2016 election, and Politico reporter Josh Gerstein offered a preview of what to expect.
"Well, I think (Trump is) certainly going to be referred to," Gerstein said. "Jurors are being told that this case has something do with Trump. We expect some testimony, at least, on the Roger Stone front about a conversation that took place with Rick Gates and somebody on the phone in the back of a limo with then-candidate Trump, where he was told in advance about the planned release of some of these Clinton or Democratic emails."
"So we do expect the president's name to be invoked at the trial," Gerstein added, "whether it's something that he'll have to pay a political price for, you know, six months from now or a year from now, I think we'll have to wait and see."
Trump's current attorney, Rudy Giuliani, is reportedly under investigation for his role in the Ukraine scandal, and his indicted associate Lev Parnas has indicated he would cooperate with investigators.
"It's not good news for Giuliani or the president," Gerstein said. "Parnas is making this kind of outreach to Capitol Hill and saying, 'Look, I'm willing to work with you guys.' I have to say, though, it's a little murky to me how we get from him being interested in cooperating to actually cooperating."
But he said the change in strategy is certainly noteworthy.
"The shift in strategy is probably more notable than any chance that Parnas is going to start singing soon," Gerstein said. "If he wants to sing, it's best to sing to the federal prosecutors before he tries to work something out on Capitol Hill."
Brzezinski was gobsmacked by the investigations swirling around the president.
"Oh my goodness," she said. "You look at this all, look at what we just talked about in the past six minutes, all these moving parts, from his tax returns, Michael Cohen, Lev Parnas, Roger Stone, Karen McDougal, Stormy Daniels, possible payments that are campaign finance violations and the growing mountain of evidence surrounding the Ukraine scandal, and you've got this president and his Fox News hosts talking about one thing, the whistleblower, and you get a sense that that seems unbelievably silly and deflecting."
