Donald Trump laced into Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats on Thursday 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, the AP reports. 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, the AP reports. 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 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.
- "Tradition holds that I'm supposed to tell a few self-deprecating jokes this evening," Trump said, per the Washington Post. "So here it goes ... Nope. I've got nothing," he said to laughs. He added: "I just don't see the point of taking shots at myself when other people have been shooting at me."
- 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."
- Trump also joked about Harris' running mate, saying, "Unfortunately, Governor Walz isn't here himself. But don't worry, he'll say that he was."
- Melania Trump attended in a rare appearance. Others in attendance included New York's embattled Mayor Eric Adams and other top city officials. "Mayor Adams: Good luck with everything," Trump said, adding that what Adams faces is "peanuts" compared to his own legal woes.
- In the video she recorded for the occasion, Harris appeared alongside 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."
- The dinner was emceed by Jim Gaffigan, who plays Tim Walz on SNL. Gaffigan, who has a history of criticizing Trump, 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."
- In what the New York Times calls the "most biblical joke" of the night, Gaffigan addressed Melania Trump. "Jesus taught us to forgive seven times, not seven times, but 70 times seven," he said. "And Melania, you may be the first person to actually reach that."
(At the
Al Smith dinner in 2016, Hillary Clinton spoke after Trump and joked that she "didn't think he'd be OK with a peaceful transfer of power.")