An excerpt was published by The Washington Post. According to the excerpt, Cohen says Trump remarked after the meeting: "Can you believe people believe that bulls---?"

Cohen also says it was a "cosmic joke" that Trump had managed to convince working-class people that he cared about them when "the truth was that he couldn't care less." Evangelicals - who make up one in four Americans - were credited with helping Trump win the White House, with 80% voting for Trump in 2016.

President Donald Trump spoke condescendingly about evangelical Christians after holding a meeting with religious leaders before the 2016 election, his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen has said in a new book.

Cohen, who broke with Trump to cooperate with the special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, is releasing a memoir Tuesday titled "Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump."

The Washington Post, which obtained a copy of the book before its release, reported one passage in which Cohen details what he says happened after Trump met with prominent evangelical leaders at Trump Tower in 2016 before winning the presidency.

After the meeting was over, Cohen says, Trump said: "Can you believe that bulls---? Can you believe people believe that bulls---?"

"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," Cohen added, according to The Post. "The truth was that he couldn't care less."

It's unclear what meeting Cohen was referring to, but Trump did meet with conservative Christian leaders in New York City in June 2016, according to NPR, which was allowed inside the private event.

Though Trump - a self-described Presbyterian - was not known for being religious, evangelical Christians overwhelmingly supported him in 2016, with 80% of the group voting for him over Hillary Clinton.

Evangelical Christians are an important voting bloc. With one in four Americans describing themselves as evangelical, they are the most common religious group in America, according to the Brookings Institution think tank.

This support has mystified many, since Trump's behavior and language can be very un-Christian-like.

In his first term, however, he has pleased evangelical Christians by adding two conservative justices to the Supreme Court, blocking funding to Planned Parenthood, and supporting religious freedom.