The set of “Morning Joe” reacted with sorrow and sadness Wednesday to the news that Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s office had been raided by the FBI. On set, normally tough personalities like Mika Brzezinski and Donny Deutsch said that Cohen was actually a sweet person faced with a terrible choice.
“When you see him as a character from a distance you say ‘okay, he’s thuggish.’ When you know him there is something actually very likable about him. Very likable. Very likable about him,” said Deutsch. “I know this is bizarre to say. He seems like a good guy.”
“Very gentle,” Brzezinski added almost in spite of herself. “I’ve seen him a couple of times.”
With Cohen potentially facing jail time for his role in facilitating payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, the gang wondered if the famously loyal Trump fixer would finally turn on his boss to save himself and his family.
“If we want to jump inside Michael Cohen’s head a little bit here,” offered Vanity Fair senior correspondent Emily Jane Fox, “There is such a twisted psychology there that Michael Cohen for a decade has been known as one thing and that is Donald Trump’s fixer. And so this is kind of an identity crisis that he is facing right now.”
A gentleman facing an identity crisis — perhaps. But that would likely be news to many of the reporters who have jousted with him in the past including, then-Daily Beast correspondent Tim Mak, who wrote a piece about Trump’s marriage to his first wife Ivana.
“I will make sure that you and I meet one day while we’re in the courthouse. And I will take you for every penny you still don’t have,” Cohen told Mak. “And I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know … So I’m warning you, tread very f–ing lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be f–ing disgusting. You understand me?”