Trump delivers a pointed and at times bitter speech at Al Smith charity
dinner
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[October 18, 2024]
By JILL COLVIN
NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump laced into Vice President
Kamala Harris and other Democrats on Thursday in a pointed and at times
bitter speech as he headlined the annual Al Smith charity dinner in New
York.
Trump, in remarks that often felt more like a rally performance than a
comedy routine, repeatedly criticized Harris over her decision to skip
the event in a break from presidential tradition as she campaigned in
Wisconsin.
She recorded a video that was played onscreen, but Trump called the
decision "deeply disrespectful."
““If you really wanted Vice President Harris to accept your invitation,
I guess you should have told her the funds were going to bail out the
looters and rioters in Minneapolis and she would have been here,
guaranteed,” said Trump, urging Catholics to vote for him in response.
“You better remember that I’m here and she’s not," he said.
The white-tie dinner raises millions of dollars for Catholic charities
and has traditionally offered candidates from both parties the chance to
trade lighthearted barbs, poke fun at themselves, and show that they can
get along — or at least pretend to — for one night in the election's
final stretch.
It's often the last time the two nominees share a stage before Election
Day.
Trump delivered a number of one-liners that drew laughs. But he also
questioned the mental fitness of Harris and President Joe Biden,
commented on second gentleman Doug Emhoff's extramarital affair during
his previous marriage, and made a joke about transgender women that
echoed his frequent mocking of trans athletes on the campaign trail.
He said at one point that he would offer a couple of self-deprecating
jokes before abandoning the effort. “Nope. I’ve got nothing,” he said to
laughs.
“I just don’t see the point of taking shots at myself when other people
have been shooting at me," he said, referencing his survival of two
assassination attempts this year.
Of Biden, he said, “If the Democrats really wanted to have someone not
be with us this evening, they would have sent Joe Biden."
Later, he said the current occupant of the White House “can barely talk,
barely put together two coherent sentences, who seems to have the mental
faculties of a child. This is a person that has nothing going, no
intelligence whatsoever. But enough about Kamala Harris.”
In the video she recorded for the occasion, Harris appeared alongside
comedian and actress Molly Shannon, who reprised her long-running
“Saturday Night Live” character Mary Katherine Gallagher, an awkward
Catholic schoolgirl. She also poked fun at Trump for comments he made in
Michigan, saying that mocking Catholics in the video would be “like
criticizing Detroit in Detroit.”
Harris’ campaign had previously said that, with less than three weeks
before Election Day, they wanted her to spend as much time as possible
campaigning in battleground states that will decide the election, rather
than detouring to heavily Democratic New York. Her team has told
organizers that she would be willing to attend the dinner as president
if she wins.
Melania Trump attended in a rare appearance
Trump was joined at the dinner by his wife, Melania, who has been an
infrequent presence on the campaign trail.
The dais included a mix of Trump allies and foes, with various
entanglements. They included New York Attorney General Letitia James,
who brought a successful civil fraud case against Trump and his
business. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who endorsed Trump after dropping his
bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, attended with his wife,
Cheryl Hines.
Also in attendance were New York’s embattled Mayor Eric Adams and other
top city officials, as well as business leaders and sports and media
personalities. Adams was charged last month with accepting illegal
campaign contributions and lavish overseas trips from Turkish officials
and businesspeople — a case that was mentioned repeatedly, including by
Trump.
Trump has claimed, without evidence, that Adams was targeted by
authorities because he criticized Biden’s migrant policies.
“Mayor Adams: Good luck with everything,” Trump said, adding that what
Adams faces is “peanuts” compared to his own legal woes and predicting
that he will win reelection nonetheless.
He also went after former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was
repeatedly booed by the crowd.
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Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks
as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of N.Y., listens at the 79th
annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Thursday, Oct.
17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
“To be honest, he was a terrible mayor," Trump said before offering
a profanity at a religion-themed event. "I don’t give a s—- if this
is comedy or not.”
Jim Gaffigan, who plays Tim Walz on ‘SNL,’ emceed
The dinner was emceed by comedian Jim Gaffigan, who plays Democratic
vice presidential nominee Tim Walz on “Saturday Night Live.”
Gaffigan has a history of criticizing Trump. In 2020, he wrote on X,
then named Twitter, that, “We need to wake up. We need to call trump
the con man and thief that he is.”
Gaffigan largely kept his focus on others Thursday, but offered
several pointed quips, including when he referenced allegations that
the Trump Organization in the 1970s discriminated against Black
renters.
“If Vice President Harris wins this election, not only would she be
the first female president, a Black woman would occupy the White
House, a former Trump residence,” Gaffigan said. “Obviously you
wouldn't be renting to her. I mean, that would never happen anyway.
Maybe if Doug did the signing.”
Gaffigan also mocked Harris for not coming to the dinner and joked
about the Democrats replacing Biden with the vice president.
“The media has begun discussing the phenomena of secret Trump
voters. I don’t know if you’ve heard about this — people who
publicly say they would never vote for Trump, but then when they go
in the voting booth, they do. It’s a small group. They’re called the
Biden family,” he told the crowd.
Reprising his role
Trump's tone echoed his appearance in 2016, when he was joined by
his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, and delivered a particularly
nasty speech in which he called her “corrupt."
“Hillary believes that it’s vital to deceive the people by having
one public policy and a totally different policy in private,” he
said to jeers. “For example, here she is tonight, in public,
pretending not to hate Catholics.”
Mary Callahan Erdoes, vice chair of the foundation, alluded to that
when she introduced Trump, suggesting she hoped for something less
caustic.
“You never disappoint. Your wit is absolutely fabulous. And all of
us together are going to hope for the best,” she said to laughs.
Trump, too, referenced the performance Thursday, saying that, in
2016, he "went overboard. That was like terrible. And I knew I was
in trouble midway through."
That didn't stop him, however, from similar attacks, and repeatedly
straying off-script.
The Harris campaign responded to Trump's speech with a statement
saying it would remind “Americans how unstable he’s become.”
“He may refuse to release his medical records, but every day he
makes it clear to the American people that he is not up to the job,”
said spokesperson Ammar Moussa.
Trump's sense of humor is often cited by his supporters as key to
his appeal. While he infamously glowered through former President
Barack 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 remarked on his hair after
catching a glimpse of himself onscreen.
“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 Biden, who is Catholic, spoke at a virtual version of
the fundraiser in 2020, which was moved online due to concerns over
large gatherings at the height of the pandemic.
The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner is named for the
former New York governor, a Democrat who was the first Catholic to
receive a major-party nomination for president when he
unsuccessfully ran for the White House in 1928.
The event has become a tradition for 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 vetoed a late-term abortion ban.
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