As of Tuesday morning, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Presents a Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo is still out-selling Marlon Bundo's Day in the Life of the Vice President by Charlotte Pence on Amazon’s best-seller list. And the vice president’s daughter seems totally chill about it.
Charlotte and her mother Karen Pence were on Fox Business Network with Maria Bartiromo to promote their new book when the host casually brought up the fact that Oliver’s parody book about a gay bunny—revealed on his HBO show Sunday night—had just knocked James Comey’s upcoming memoir off of Amazon’s top spot.
“I mean, I think you know, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery in a way,” Charlotte said. “But also, in all seriousness, his book is contributing to charities that I think we can all get behind. We have two books giving to charities that are about bunnies so I’m all for it really.”
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Karen Pence stayed notably silent on the matter. But later, Charlotte Pence retweeted the Fox Business clip of her positive reaction to Oliver’s book.
Her comments deviate dramatically from the statement put out by her book’s publisher. “It’s unfortunate that anyone would feel the need to ridicule an educational children’s book and turn it into something controversial and partisan,” a spokesperson for Regnery Publishing told CNN on Monday.
As for those charities that “we can all get behind,” they include The Trevor Project, which aims to help save young LGBT lives and AIDS United, which strives to end the AIDS epidemic in the United States. As Oliver pointed out on his show, Pence has a horrendous record on those issues.
The vice president has supported so-called “conversion therapy” for LGBT Americans and once proposed diverting HIV/AIDS funds towards “institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.” The Pences’ book tour will include a stop at the headquarters of the Christian conservative, anti-gay group Focus on the Family.
And while 100% of proceeds from Oliver’s book go to those charities, only an unspecified portion of the profits from the Pences’ book will go to less controversial non-profit organizations that focus on combating human trafficking and providing art therapy to children.
For the most part, Charlotte Pence has tried to stay mostly apolitical as she has promoted the new book. But there was a telling moment on The View Tuesday when co-host Sunny Hostin asked her about Marlon Bundo’s political leanings.
“I don’t know, I guess you’d have to ask him that,” she said. “I think he kind of hops down the middle of the aisle. He brings people together.”
Could she have been talking about herself?
