Trump tries comedy, but lands more verbal punches than punchlines

New York: Former president Donald Trump laced into Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats in a pointed and at times bitter speech as he headlined the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in New York.

Trump, in remarks that often felt more like a rally speech than a comedy bit, repeatedly criticised Harris over her decision to skip the event, breaking with presidential tradition as she campaigned in Wisconsin. She recorded a video that was played onscreen at the event on Thursday night (Friday AEDT) instead.

Donald Trump gestures as he departs the 79th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in New York.Credit: AP

“You should have told her the funds were going to bail out the looters and rioters in Minneapolis, and then she’d be here,” Trump said, urging the Catholic charities to vote for him.

“You gotta remember that I’m here and she’s not.”

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 hearty laughs. But he also questioned the mental fitness of Harris and President Joe Biden, spoke of 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.

Of Biden, he said: “If the Democrats really wanted to have someone not be with us this evening, they would have sent Joe Biden.”

Melania Trump made a rare public appearance at the dinner.Credit: AP

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. Harris also poked fun at Trump for comments he made in Michigan, saying that mocking Catholics in the video would be “like criticising 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 told organisers 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 wife Melania, who has been an infrequent presence on the campaign trail.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr and wife Cheryl Hines at the charity event. Credit: AP

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.

Embattled New York Mayor Eric Adams and other top city officials, as well as business leaders and sports and media personalities, were also in attendance. Adams was charged last month with accepting illegal campaign contributions and lavish overseas trips from Turkish officials and business people. The case that was mentioned repeatedly, including by Trump.

Trump has claimed, without evidence, that Adams was targeted by authorities because he criticised Biden’s migrant policies.

Trump speaks as senator Chuck Schumer listens.Credit: AP

“Mayor Adams: good luck with everything,” Trump said, adding that what Adams faces is “peanuts” compared with his own legal woes.

He also went after former New York mayor Bill de Blasio, who was repeatedly booed by the crowd.

“To be honest, he was a terrible mayor,” Trump said before offering a profanity at a religion-themed event. “I don’t give a shit if this is comedy or not.”

Trump’s tone echoed his appearance in 2016, when he was joined by his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, and delivered a particularly nasty speech, calling 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 at the 2016 dinner. “For example, here she is tonight, in public, pretending not to hate Catholics.”

Mary Callahan Erdoes, vice chair of the foundation, alluded to that past speech when she introduced Trump, suggesting she hoped for something less caustic.

Trump, too, referenced the performance onstage, 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.

The Harris campaign responded to Trump’s speech with a statement saying it would remind “Americans how unstable he’s become”.

Trump’s sense of humour is often cited by his supporters as key to his appeal. While he infamously glowered through then-president Barack Obama’s jokes at his expense during the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner, he also sometimes pokes fun at himself.

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.

AP

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