Unpacking Claim of Trump’s Alleged ‘Pay to Pray’ Church Service at Inauguration

As U.S. President-elect Donald Trump ready to take workplace on Jan. 20, 2025, Snopes acquired quite a few queries from readers about tickets to the occasions of inauguration weekend, which begins on Jan. 18. One declare on Reddit (archived) said: “Pay-to-pray: Trump reportedly charging supporters $100,000 to attend church service with him.”

(Reddit)

Many different posts and articles stated Trump was providing a “pay-to-pray” deal to donors who gave $100,000, which included a ticket to the church service. A YouTube video claimed: “Donald Trump’s blasphemous 100k ‘Pay to Pray’ Church rip-off the place he’s charging individuals 1000’s of {dollars} to hope with him earlier than his inauguration! These idiots will purchase something from [sic] this grifter!”

One X person posted: “Trump charging individuals $100,000 to attend church with him is probably the most anti-Jesus factor I’ve ever heard.”

(X person @DeaconBlues0)

The New York Instances, The Hill and Axios reported that the Trump Vance Inaugural Committee was certainly providing this to donors, although the Sunday church service was considered one of many perks that got here with a $100,000 donation. Snopes has not but been in a position to independently affirm this, however we’ve got reached out to the Trump transition staff for entry to a duplicate of the advantages prospectus and can replace this story accordingly.

In response to The New York Times, a flyer titled “Trump Vance Inaugural Committee Advantages” listed perks for donations as much as $1 million and fundraising of as much as $2 million. Axios shared a duplicate of a web page in a Dec. 4, 2024, publication.

In response to the document, a donation of $100,000 or fundraising of $200,000 would get a donor two tickets to a victory rally, a cupboard reception, the Sunday church service, the swearing-in ceremony, the parade, the “Starlight Ball” and reserving for 2 rooms at a specific lodge.

(Axios)

In response to The Hill, the “One America, One Mild Sunday Service” shall be an interfaith service involving U.S. army bands. It’s unknown the place this service shall be held. The schedule was launched to donors in early December 2024, with a Jan. 10 deadline to R.S.V.P.

Nonetheless, the official inauguration website doesn’t checklist a “One America, One Mild Sunday Service” that was referenced in media stories. It incorporates a church service on Jan. 20 — a Monday, not a Sunday — and a “Nationwide Prayer Service” the next day. 

The costliest package consists of six tickets to the victory rally, Cupboard reception, church service, candlelight dinner with the Trumps, swearing-in ceremony, parade and ball, and two tickets to dinner with Vice President-elect JD Vance.

This isn’t the primary time Trump has fundraised massive sums for his inauguration. His first inaugural committee raised $107 million and was investigated by federal prosecutors for unlawful international donations, leading to a 12-year jail sentence for one donor.

This year, prime tech corporations together with Meta, Amazon, Uber and OpenAI have donated at the least $1 million every to Trump’s inaugural fund.

We discovered no proof of a church service being referenced as a part of the donor perks in both President Joe Biden’s or former President Barack Obama’s inaugurations. Trump’s final inauguration additionally didn’t embody a church service amongst its perks.

Inaugural committees are allowed to obtain cash from nearly anybody (excluding international nationals), together with companies. 

U.S. President Joe Biden additionally had massive donors forward of his 2021 inauguration. Biden’s inauguration committee brought in round $62 million in whole from donors together with Invoice and Melinda Gates and companies like Google, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Pfizer, Financial institution of America, PepsiCo and Uber between November 2020 and April 2021.

The Biden committee offered massive donor perks in 2020, regardless that inauguration celebrations have been largely virtual due to the coronavirus pandemic. Packages included invites to a “digital live performance throughout inauguration week” and the digital inauguration in addition to digital briefings with inaugural committee leaders.

Similarly, in 2012, Obama’s inauguration committee raised round $43 million. In response to a 2012 report in The New York Instances, donor perks for Obama’s second inauguration included “tickets to a ‘benefactors reception,’ a kids’s live performance, a candlelight celebration on the Nationwide Constructing Museum, two reserved parade bleacher seats and 4 tickets to the president’s official inaugural ball.” The celebrations have been toned down from Obama’s first inauguration in 2009, although at the moment he refused company donations completely.

Sources