President Trump said in vulgar terms that evangelical Christians believed in nonsense, according to his former lawyer Michael Cohen.
In a new memoir, titled Disloyal, Cohen claims that Trump, while a presidential candidate during the 2016 campaign, held a meeting with evangelicals in Trump Tower in Manhattan, where they laid hands on him in prayer. Afterward, Cohen writes that Trump said, “Can you believe that bullshit? Can you believe people believe that bullshit?”
Cohen continued: “The cosmic joke was that Trump convinced a vast swathe of working-class white folks in the Midwest that he cared about their well-being. The truth was that he couldn’t care less.”
Cohen’s book is due for release on Tuesday, but excerpts began to surface on Saturday. In response, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany called the book’s claims “lies,” taking aim at his credibility by invoking his criminal record.
“Michael Cohen is a disgraced felon and disbarred lawyer, who lied to Congress. He has lost all credibility, and it’s unsurprising to see his latest attempt to profit off of lies,” McEnany said in a statement.
Throughout his presidency, Trump has maintained high approval ratings among white evangelical voters but saw a dip this summer amid the coronavirus pandemic. In a Pew Research Center survey conducted at the end of June, Trump’s approval from the religious community dropped from 78% in April to 72% by the end of June. However, that same poll found that 82% of white evangelical Protestants said they will either vote for or lean toward voting for the Republican.
Cohen, who was sentenced to three years in federal prison in December 2018, is serving the rest of his three-year sentence in home confinement after he was briefly sent back to prison in July following his original release in May due to concerns related to the coronavirus. Cohen pleaded guilty to several criminal charges in 2018, including lying to Congress as well as bank fraud, tax fraud, and campaign finance violations related to facilitating hush money payments to two women who alleged romantic affairs with Trump, which the president has denied.
Cohen is expected to appear in a series of interviews to promote his book next week.
