Karen Pence was furious when Donald Trump won the election and her husband became vice president, so much that she reportedly snapped on election night and refused to kiss him.
A Guardian article from author Michael Lewis claims that Mike Pence’s wife was so upset with Trump that she would not speak to the president-elect and that she rebuffed her husband’s attempt to kiss her after they won, saying: “You got what you wanted, Mike. Now leave me alone.”
The article, which was based on interviews with members of Donald Trump’s transition team, claimed that Trump’s win took everyone by surprise. That included Donald Trump, who after securing the election “just stared at the TV without saying anything, like a man with a pair of twos whose bluff has been called.”
This is not the first report to claim that Karen Pence had some tension with Donald Trump. A story earlier this year in the Atlantic claimed that she was “disgusted” after the release of the Access Hollywood tape late in the campaign that showed Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women.
“She finds him reprehensible — just totally vile,” an insider told the magazine.
This came despite Donald Trump making attempts to convince Mike Pence and his wife that he was a devout religious man. As the Atlantic report noted, Trump tried to make it seem as if he was a man of faith and even left Pence a voicemail on the night of the vice presidential debate telling Mike that he had said a prayer for him.
That ruse apparently didn’t work for Karen Pence, who still harbored ill feelings toward Trump as election day arrived. It also alienated many of the Pence’s longtime political allies, with many Indiana political insiders telling the Atlantic that there was a widespread believe that Mike Pence “sold out” his religious beliefs to team up with Donald Trump.
Karen Pence wouldn’t acknowledge Trump after he won election: book https://t.co/1mH4kE03JD pic.twitter.com/JtPQFuGHVu
— New York Post (@nypost) September 28, 2018
Since her husband took office as vice president, Karen Pence has mostly stayed out of the spotlight, though she did spearhead an art therapy initiative to help children deal with trauma. Pence, a trained watercolor artist, said she hoped to expose young people to careers in art while helping them cope with emotions.
“I don’t think that a lot of people understand the difference between therapeutic art and art therapy,” Karen Pence told the Associated Press in an interview at the time the initiative launched in late 2017.
