Former President Donald Trump headlined Al Smith’s annual charity dinner Thursday evening, where he was jeered eight years ago when he delivered a sharp speech about his 2016 opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Vice President Kamala Harris is not attending the event in person and is refusing to leave the campaign trail in battleground states, where polls show that the presidential race is very exciting. But she will appear on screen in a recorded video, organizers said.
New York’s white tie dinner raises millions of dollars for Catholic charities and traditionally gives candidates from both parties a chance to make lighthearted statements and show that they can get along — or at least pretend to — for one evening during the elections. last piece.
It is often the last time the two nominees share a stage before election day.
Trump was accompanied at the dinner by his wife Melania, who was rarely present on the campaign trail. The two had not appeared in public together since the Republican convention in July.
AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson
Embattled New York Mayor Eric Adams was also in attendance, along with former mayors and business leaders. Adams was indicted last month by accepting illegal campaign contributions and lavish foreign trips from Turkish officials and businesspeople.
Other notable attendees include New York Governor Kathy Hochul, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who hosted a successful meeting civil fraud case against Trump.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was greeted with applause when he arrived with his wife, actress Cheryl Hines. Kennedy fell his independent bid for the White House over the summer and endorsed Trump.
Comedian Jim Gaffigan will host the sold-out dinner, which costs $5,000 per attendee. Proceeds benefit Catholic Charities in New York.
Harris’ campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment on her plans, but her team had previously said they wanted her to spend as much time as possible campaigning in battleground states that will decide the election, rather than taking a detour to heavily democratic New York. . Her team has told organizers she would be willing to attend as president if she wins.
The Daily Caller was first to report that Harris would address the dinner via video.
Trump had criticized Harris for refusing to attend, accusing her of being anti-Catholic in a social media post. “Every Catholic who votes for Comrade Kamala Harris should have his head examined,” he wrote.
That was the kind of tone that prompted boos in 2016 when Trump appeared at dinner with his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, and delivered a particularly nasty speech, calling her “corrupt” and accusing her of “pretending to be the did not hate Catholics’.
Trump’s 2016 speechdelivered the night after them last debatehad started on a less hostile note.
Trump joked that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, loved him when he was a Democrat. After noting that these kinds of comments at a dinner party usually start with a self-deprecating joke, he joked that he was “actually a modest person.”
One of his best statements of the night came at his wife’s expense, when he complained that the media was biased against him.
“You want the proof? Michelle Obama gives a speech and everyone loves it – it’s fantastic. They absolutely love her. My wife, Melania, gives the exact same speech and people are coming to her cause,” he joked in a reference to her. conference speech that year, parts of which were plagiarized.
But Trump’s comments quickly turned to bitterness as he focused on the investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state and praised “the miracle of WikiLeaks” for its revelations.
“Hillary believes it is essential to deceive the people by having one public policy and a completely different private policy,” he said mockingly. “Here she is tonight, for example, in public, pretending she doesn’t hate Catholics.”
Clinton also offered her share of personal digs, noting that for most Americans, the Statue of Liberty represents a symbol of hope for immigrants.
“Donald looks at the Statue of Liberty and sees a ‘4,’” Clinton joked. “Maybe a ‘5’ if she loses the torch and the tablet and changes her hair.”
Trump’s sense of humor is often cited by his supporters as the key to his appeal. While he infamously ignored former President Obama’s jokes at his expense during the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner, he also sometimes pokes fun at himself.
At several rallies this year, he has made a comment about his hair after catching a glimpse of himself on screen.
“What the hell can you do? There’s nothing I can do about it. We’re stuck with it,” he joked at a rally in Indiana, Pennsylvania, last month.
Both Trump and President Biden, who is Catholic, spoke at a virtual version of the 2020 fundraiser, which was moved online amid concerns about large gatherings at the height of the pandemic. Both candidates used their speeches not to tell jokes but to appeal to Catholic voters, with Biden talking about how his faith had guided him through moments of tragedy and Trump highlighting his nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who plays a prominent role at the dinner, offered a message to both men about the upcoming elections. “I also dare to remind them that Al Smith was a happy warrior, and he was never a sore loser,” he said.
The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner is named after the former governor of New York, a Democrat who was the first Catholic to receive a major party nomination for president when he ran unsuccessfully for the White House in 1928.
The event has now become a tradition presidential candidates since Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy appeared together in 1960. In 1996, the Archdiocese of New York decided not to invite then-President Bill Clinton and his Republican challenger, Bob Dole, reportedly because Clinton had vetoed a late-term abortion ban.
contributed to this report.
