Rev. Robert Jeffress went on Fox News Friday night to defend President Donald Trump amid the news that the president's longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, recorded him discussing payment of a Playboy model.

The First Baptist Dallas senior pastor compared Trump to Ronald Reagan, pointing out how evangelicals in 1980 chose to support him even though Reagan was twice-married and a "known womanizer."

"The reason we supported President Reagan was not because we supporting womanizing or divorce," Jeffress told Fox News' Ed Henry. "We supported his policies."

The pastor said the same is true today for Trump: evangelicals choose to support him despite knowing less-than-holy details from his past.

"We're not under any illusion that we were voting for an altar boy when we voted for President Trump. We knew about his past," he said. "And by the way, none of us has a perfect past. We voted for him because of his policies."

The New York Times reported that the recorded conversation with Trump takes place two months before the election. In the recording, Cohen and Trump talk about payments to a former Playboy model, Karen McDougal, who said she had a a yearlong affair with Trump.

McDougal said she began the affair in 2006, shortly after Melania Trump gave birth to their son Barron. National Enquirer bought the former model's story for $150,000 in the final months leading up to the 2016 election, but the story was never published.

Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, told The Times that Trump had discussed the payments with Cohen but that McDougal was never paid.

The tapes were seized by the FBI during a raid on Cohen's office earlier this year as part of an investigation to see if Cohen's involvement paying women violated any federal campaign finance laws.

In the end of his interview, Jeffress said what goes on in Washington, D.C. is not meant to "bring revival" to American citizens. That is the job of the church, he said.

"Government has a responsibility to maintain order and preserve citizen's freedom. That's exactly what President Trump is doing," he said. "He's fulfilling his god-given responsibility in securing our border and keeping our citizens safe."