Book Claims Team Trump Paid for Karen Pence's Inauguration Gown After Her Concerns About Price
For the Pence family, the celebration of then-candidate Donald Trump’s shocking 2016 presidential election campaign was anything but serene.
According to the New York Post, a new book about Indiana Republican Mike Pence suggests the vice president-elect’s family was deeply distressed about their potential for going broke in the days following Nov. 8, 2016.
Pence’s wife Karen reportedly felt that anxiety in spades, immediately distraught at the thought of how many adjustments would have to be made as the couple came into their new, high-profile life — particularly when it came to things like the extravagant inaugural ball.
But, Tom LoBianco writes in his new book “Piety & Power: Mike Pence and the Taking of the White House,” Trump saw to it that things were taken care of for the Pences, right down to an elegant inaugural ball gown for Karen Pence.
“What are we going to do, Mike??” LoBianco quotes Karen Pence as saying to her husband in a morning briefing with Secret Service on Nov. 9, 2016.
“What are we going to do Mike?? We don’t have any money! Who’s going to pay for my inaugural gown??” Karen Pence said on the morning after the election, per @tomlobianco. https://t.co/ajUyHyrg3J
— Adam Wren (@adamwren) September 7, 2019
“We don’t have any money!” she supposedly continued, “Who’s going to pay for my inaugural gown?”
According to LoBianco, the inaugural committee would go on to cover the cost of not one, but two, inaugural gowns, paying for sizable revisions to the original dress when Pence disapproved of it.
It has long been known that Trump has taken good care of the Pence family since originally bringing them into the fold in 2016.
From the get-go, Trump had liked Pence.
According to the Washington Examiner, it was not in spite of Pence’s early concession that he was not the “killer” Trump was looking for that the candidate picked him, but because of it.
“I’m going to enjoy myself,” LoBianco quotes Pence saying. “I’m going to be respectful.
“I’m going to do things with my own style because that’s how I’m comfortable.”
Trump reportedly had immediate respect for that calm, considerate demeanor — Pence’s unwavering willingness to be himself.
And that respect clearly carried throughout the election cycle, with Politico reporting this July that Trump’s greatest regret when the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape dropped in October 2016 was disappointing the devoutly Christian Pence family.
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