'They don't care': Cuomo explains why evangelicals give Trump a pass on lying about Stormy -- but the FBI won't

CNN's Chris Cuomo on Thursday noted that President Donald Trump could be in hot water legally over his alleged affair with adult film actress Stephanie Clifford -- who goes by the name Stormy Daniels -- even though evangelicals had already given him a pass.

During a discussion about the alleged affair on CNN, political analyst David Chalian agreed with the president's reported assertion that White House Press Secretary Sarah Sander had injected "steroids" into the debate by acknowledging that Clifford had entered into a contract with Trump's lawyer.

"We now hear from the podium for the very first time that the president is a party to this dispute with someone who is accusing him of having an affair and being paid off to be silent about that affair," Chalian said. "If Sarah Sanders job yesterday was to put this story to bed, I think she did just the opposite."

"So what's the 'so what' what on this?" Cuomo wondered. "Because if you're a Trump voter, we've seen in the polls, people believe that his personal choices are such as what they seem obviously and they don't care. They voted for him anyway, even evangelicals voted for him in a way that they haven't since Ronald Reagan -- and even more than they did for him."

"So who cares unless Donald Trump ends up sitting across from an FBI member and doesn't tell the truth about this," the CNN host added. "And then you're right back where [President Bill Clinton] was many years ago."

Chalian agreed: "It does beg the question when you look at some of his most ardent supporters, what white evangelical leaders said about Bill Clinton back in the 1990s and what they said about Bill Clinton and that they seem willing to give [Trump] a mulligan on this, I think that they need to sort of explain that discrepancy."

In 1998, Clinton was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives after a report by Independent Counsel Ken Starr accused him of making false statements about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Watch the video below from CNN.