As U.S. President-elect Donald Trump prepared to take office on Jan. 20, 2025, Snopes received numerous queries from readers about tickets to the events of inauguration weekend, which starts on Jan. 18. One claim on Reddit (archived) stated: "Pay-to-pray: Trump reportedly charging supporters $100,000 to attend church service with him."
(Reddit)
Many other posts and articles said Trump was offering 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 scam where he is charging people thousands of dollars to pray with him before his inauguration! These idiots will buy anything from [sic] this grifter!"
One X user posted: "Trump charging people $100,000 to attend church with him is the most anti-Jesus thing I have ever heard."
(X user @DeaconBlues0)
The New York Times, The Hill and Axios reported that the Trump Vance Inaugural Committee was indeed offering this to donors, though the Sunday church service was one of many perks that came with a $100,000 donation. Snopes has not yet been able to independently confirm this, but we have reached out to the Trump transition team for access to a copy of the benefits prospectus and will update this story accordingly.
According to The New York Times, a flyer titled "Trump Vance Inaugural Committee Benefits" listed perks for donations up to $1 million and fundraising of up to $2 million. Axios shared a copy of a page in a Dec. 4, 2024, newsletter.
According to the document, a donation of $100,000 or fundraising of $200,000 would get a donor two tickets to a victory rally, a cabinet reception, the Sunday church service, the swearing-in ceremony, the parade, the "Starlight Ball" and booking for two rooms at a selected hotel.
(Axios)
According to The Hill, the "One America, One Light Sunday Service" will be an interfaith service involving U.S. military bands. It is unknown where this service will be held. The schedule was released to donors in early December 2024, with a Jan. 10 deadline to R.S.V.P.
However, the official inauguration website does not list a "One America, One Light Sunday Service" that was referenced in media reports. It features a church service on Jan. 20 — a Monday, not a Sunday — and a "National Prayer Service" the following day.
The most expensive package includes six tickets to the victory rally, Cabinet 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 is not the first time Trump has fundraised large sums for his inauguration. His first inaugural committee raised $107 million and was investigated by federal prosecutors for illegal foreign donations, resulting in a 12-year prison sentence for one donor.
This year, top tech companies including Meta, Amazon, Uber and OpenAI have donated at least $1 million each to Trump's inaugural fund.
We found no evidence of a church service being referenced as part of the donor perks in either President Joe Biden's or former President Barack Obama's inaugurations. Trump's last inauguration also did not include a church service among its perks.
Inaugural committees are allowed to receive money from almost anyone (excluding foreign nationals), including corporations.
U.S. President Joe Biden also had big donors ahead of his 2021 inauguration. Biden's inauguration committee brought in around $62 million in total from donors including Bill and Melinda Gates and corporations like Google, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Pfizer, Bank of America, PepsiCo and Uber between November 2020 and April 2021.
The Biden committee offered big donor perks in 2020, even though inauguration celebrations were mostly virtual because of the coronavirus pandemic. Packages included invitations to a "virtual concert during inauguration week" and the virtual inauguration as well as virtual briefings with inaugural committee leaders.
Similarly, in 2012, Obama's inauguration committee raised around $43 million. According to a 2012 report in The New York Times, donor perks for Obama's second inauguration included "tickets to a 'benefactors reception,' a children's concert, a candlelight celebration at the National Building Museum, two reserved parade bleacher seats and four tickets to the president's official inaugural ball." The celebrations were toned down from Obama's first inauguration in 2009, though at that time he refused corporate donations entirely.