Trump attends Al Smith dinner while Harris appears in pre-recorded video

Former President Donald Trump headlined the annual Al Smith charity dinner Thursday night, where he was jeered eight years ago as he delivered a pointed speech targeting his 2016 opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t attend the event in person, declining to leave the campaign trail in the battleground states, where polls show the presidential race is very tight. But she did appear on screen in a recorded video for a brief address to the dinner. 

The white tie dinner in New York raises millions of dollars for Catholic charities and has traditionally offered candidates from both parties the chance to trade light-hearted barbs 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 was accompanied at the dinner by his wife, Melania, who has been an infrequent presence on the campaign trail. The two had not appeared in public together since the Republican convention in July.

Embattled New York Mayor Eric Adams also attended, along with past mayors and business leaders. Adams was charged last month with accepting illegal campaign contributions and lavish overseas trips from Turkish officials and businesspeople. 

Other notable attendees include New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought a successful civil fraud case against Trump.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was greeted with applause as he arrived with his wife, actress Cheryl Hines. Kennedy dropped his independent bid for the White House over the summer and endorsed Trump. 

Comedian Jim Gaffigan emceed the sold-out dinner, which costs $5,000 per attendee. Proceeds benefit Catholic charities in New York.

In Trump’s headlining remarks, he admitted he went “overboard” in his attacks on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in his 2016 appearance, before then attacking Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff for an extramarital affair he recently admitted to when he was married to his first wife.

“The only piece of advice I would have for her in the event that she wins would be not to let her husband Doug anywhere near the nannies. Just keep him away,” Trump said, admitting, “That’s a nasty one.”

Trump took aim at Adams for his alleged campaign finance crimes, saying he had “never met a person who’s a vegan who liked Turkey so much.”

At one point, Trump joked about the assassination attempts against him, saying, “I just don’t see the point of taking shots at myself when other people have been shooting at me.”

Harris’ campaign shared the video she recorded for the event. In it, she was joined by comedian Molly Shannon, playing the Catholic schoolgirl character she made famous on “Saturday Night Live,” who tells Harris this is one of the biggest dinners since the Last Supper.

Harris asks, “Is there anything that you think that maybe I shouldn’t bring up tonight?”

“Um, well, don’t lie,” Shannon says. “Thou shalt not bear false witness to thy neighbor.”

“Indeed, especially thy neighbor’s election results,” Harris quips.

Shannon also suggested, “Maybe don’t say anything negative about Catholics,” and Harris replies, “I would never do that, no matter where I was. That would be like criticizing Detroit in Detroit” — a dig at Trump’s comments on a visit there last week.

Gaffigan made jokes at both parties’ expense throughout the evening.

“President Trump talked about migrants taking cats and eating them. If you’re keeping track at home, this is the second time grabbing a kitty has been part of a campaign,” Gaffigan said, before later attacking Harris for not appearing in-person. 

“I’m sorry, why is Vice President Harris not here? This is a room full of Catholics and Jews in New York City, this is a layup for the Democratic nominee.”

The Harris campaign previously said that it 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’d be willing to attend the dinner as president if she wins.

Trump blasted Harris for declining to attend, accusing her in a social media post of being anti-Catholic. “Any Catholic that votes for Comrade Kamala Harris should have their head examined,” he wrote.

That was the kind of tone that drew boos in 2016 when Trump appeared at the dinner with his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, and unleashed a particularly nasty speech, calling her “corrupt” and accusing her of “pretending not to hate Catholics.”

Trump’s 2016 speech, delivered the night after their final debate, had begun on a less hostile tone.

Trump joked that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, used to love him when he when he was a Democrat. After noting that these kinds of dinner remarks typically begin with a self-deprecating joke, he quipped that he was “actually a modest person.”

One of his best lines of the night came at the expense of his wife as 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 think she’s absolutely great. My wife, Melania, gives the exact same speech and people get on her case,” he joked in a reference to her convention speech that year, parts of which had been plagiarized.

But Trump’s remarks soon veered into bitterness as he turned to the investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state and he praised “the wonder of WikiLeaks” for its revelations.

“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.”

Clinton also offered her share of personal digs, noting that the Statue of Liberty, for most Americans, 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 tablet and changes her hair.”

Trump’s sense of humor is often cited by his supporters as key to his appeal. While he infamously glowered through 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 remarked on 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 fundraiser in 2020, which was moved online due to concerns over 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 speaking about how his faith had guided him through moments of tragedy and Trump emphasizing his nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who plays a prominent role in the dinner, offered a message to both men about the upcoming election. “I also dare remind them that Al Smith was a happy warrior, that he was never a sore loser,” he said.

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.

Jacob Rosen

contributed to this report.