Trump insults Harris, Democrats in speech at Al Smith charity dinner - Boston News, Weather, Sports

NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump engaged Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats Thursday in a blunt and sometimes bitter speech as he headlined Al Smith’s annual benefit dinner in New York. York.

Trump, in comments that often seemed more like a rally performance than comedy, repeatedly criticized Harris for her decision to skip the event, breaking with presidential tradition while campaigning in Wisconsin.

She recorded a video that was shown on the screen, but Trump called the decision “deeply disrespectful.”

“If you really wanted Vice President Harris to accept your invitation, I think you should have told her that the funds would go to rescue the looters and rioters in Minneapolis and she would be here, guaranteed,” Trump said, urging Catholics to vote for him in response.

“You better remember that I’m here and she’s not,” he said.

The gala dinner raises millions of dollars for Catholic charities and traditionally offers candidates from both parties the opportunity to trade light-hearted barbs, poke fun at themselves and show they can get along – or at least pretend – for one night in final stretch of the election.

It’s often the last time the two nominees share the stage before Election Day.

Trump delivered a series of one-liners that drew laughter. 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 trans women that echoed his frequent mocking of trans athletes during the campaign.

He said at one point that he would tell a few self-deprecating jokes before abandoning the effort. “No. I have nothing,” he said, laughing.

“I just don’t see the point in shooting myself when other people have shot me,” he said, referring to his survival of two assassination attempts this year.

Of Biden, he said, “If the Democrats really wanted anyone not to be with us tonight, they would have sent Joe Biden.”

Later, he said that the current occupant of the White House “can barely speak, can barely put together two coherent sentences, that he seems to have the mental faculties of a child. This is a person who has nothing, no intelligence. But enough about Kamala Harris.”

In the video she recorded for the occasion, Harris appeared alongside comedian and actress Molly Shannon, who reprized her longtime “Saturday Night Live” character Mary Katherine Gallagher, an awkward Catholic student. She also mocked Trump for comments he made in Michigan, saying mocking Catholics in the video would be “like criticizing Detroit in Detroit.”

Harris’ campaign had previously said that with less than three weeks until Election Day, they wanted her to spend as much time as possible campaigning in swing states that will decide the election, rather than diverting to heavily Democratic New York. . Her team told organizers that she would be willing to attend the dinner as president if she won.

Melania Trump made 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 enemies, with varying involvements. They included New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought a successful civil fraud case against Trump and his company. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who supported Trump after dropping his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, attended with his wife, Cheryl Hines.

Also present were embattled New York Mayor Eric Adams and other city officials, as well as business leaders and sports and media figures. Adams was accused last month of accepting illegal campaign contributions and lavish foreign trips from Turkish officials and businesspeople — a case that has been mentioned repeatedly, including by Trump.

Trump claimed, without evidence, that Adams was targeted by authorities because he criticized Biden’s immigration policies.

“Mayor Adams: Good luck with everything,” Trump said, adding that what Adams faces are “peanuts” compared to his own legal problems and predicting that he will nonetheless be reelected.

He also attacked former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was repeatedly booed by the crowd.

“To be honest, he was a terrible mayor,” Trump said before swearing at a religious-themed event. “I don’t give a fuck – whether this is comedy or not.”

Jim Gaffigan, who plays Tim Walz on ‘SNL,’ is the host

The dinner was hosted by comedian Jim Gaffigan, who plays Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz on “Saturday Night Live.”

Gaffigan has a history of criticizing Trump. In 2020, he wrote on X, then called Twitter, that “We need to wake up. We need to call Trump out for the crook and thief that he is.”

Gaffigan kept his focus largely on others Thursday, but made several incisive jokes, 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, but 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 attending the dinner and joked about Democrats replacing Biden as vice president.

“The media began to discuss the phenomenon of secret Trump voters. I don’t know if you’ve heard about this – people who say publicly that they would never vote for Trump, but when they go to the voting booth, they do. It’s a small group. They are 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 gave a particularly nasty speech in which he called her “corrupt.”

“Hillary believes it is vital to deceive people by having a totally different public policy and a completely different private policy,” he said amid jeers. “For example, here she is tonight, in public, pretending not to hate Catholics.”

Mary Callahan Erdoes, vice president of the foundation, alluded to this when she introduced Trump, suggesting she expected something less caustic.

“You never disappoint. Your intelligence is absolutely fabulous. And all of us together will hope for the best,” she said, laughing.

Trump also referenced Thursday’s performance, saying that in 2016, he “overreacted. That was terrible. And I knew I was in trouble along the way.”

This did not, however, stop him from similar attacks and repeatedly deviating from the script.

Harris’ campaign responded to Trump’s speech with a statement saying it would remind “Americans how unstable he has 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 spokesman Ammar Moussa.

Trump’s sense of humor is often cited by his supporters as fundamental to his appeal. Although he criticized 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 commented on his hair after seeing himself on screen.

“What the hell can you do? There’s nothing I can do about it. We’re stuck with this,” he joked at a rally in Indiana, Pennsylvania, last month.

Both Trump and Biden, who is Catholic, spoke at a virtual version of the 2020 fundraiser, which was moved online due to concerns about large gatherings at the height of the pandemic.

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 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 opponent, Bob Dole, reportedly because Clinton vetoed the ban on late-term abortion.