Trump Used the Al Smith Dinner to Insist Catholics Vote for Him

Flanked by members of the New York Archdiocese and the city’s political elite, Donald Trump used his keynote speech at the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner to lacerate Vice President Kamala Harris for skipping the event, turning her absence into a fresh plea for Catholic votes.

“They call me weird, they called JD weird, we’re very solid people,” Trump said. “It’s ‘weird’ that Harris isn’t here.”

“Catholics, you’ve gotta vote for me,” he told the crowd of wealthy New Yorkers. “Just remember. You better remember: I’m here, and she’s not. I could’ve done that too.”

Presidential candidates have attended the event for decades, typically using it as a moment of levity in the tense weeks before Election Day. This year, Harris sent a video — partly joking, featuring Molly Shannon, and partly a tribute to the foundation’s charity work — and instead used her time to campaign.

“Tradition holds that I’m supposed to tell a few self-deprecating jokes this evening,” Trump told the crowd from the dais. “So here it goes. Nope, I’ve got nothing. There’s nothing to say. I guess I just don’t see the point of taking shots at myself when other people have been shooting at me for a hell of a long time.”

The dinner, which is put on by the second-largest diocese in the country, is a fundraising event for the city’s Catholic charities. Historically, it has served as an opportunity for presidential candidates to hit pause on the race, show their humorous and self-deprecating sides and engage in an evening of something resembling unity.

Due to the pandemic, the event was canceled in 2020. This is the first time any presidential candidate has been on the stage since 2016, when Trump turned what is usually a good-natured roast into a scorching of Hillary Clinton on the heels of an infamously nasty presidential debate.

“Here she is tonight, in public, pretending not to hate Catholics,” he said in 2016.

That year, it was difficult to tell whether he was joking. By contrast, the crowd was explicit in its disapproval of Trump’s comments, booing throughout the second half of his speech.

This year’s speech, while still occasionally tense, was less harsh and not so obviously poorly received.

Trump took jabs at those in the room, as well as those beyond it.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife, Cheryl Hines, were in attendance — Trump spotlighted the couple, making reference to the former presidential candidate’s “Make America Healthy Again” plan.

“I also want to congratulate someone who is going to make us all healthy: RFK Jr.,” he said. “He’s gonna make us a healthier place. We’re gonna let him go wild for a little while, then I’m gonna have to maybe rein him back — because he’s got some pretty wild ideas, but most of them are pretty good, I think.”

Political heavyweights like Sen. Chuck Schumer and Speaker Mike Johnson, as well as Michael Bloomberg, New York City Mayor Eric Adams and New York Attorney General Letitia James were also in attendance. Schumer sat right next to Trump as he spoke and was a regular target for jokes.

On multiple occasions, Trump referenced Adams’ recent indictment and drew comparisons to his own flurry of court cases, suggesting without basis that Adams was subject of a political persecution because of his criticism of the Biden administration’s immigration policies.

“Mayor Adams, good luck with everything,” he said.

Trump used most of the event to attack Harris for her absence, solicit the Catholic vote and remind the room of his usual talking points, tacking on a few sentences about immigration and crime toward the end.

“Catholics, please don’t be too insulted by Kamala’s absence,” he said. “If Democrats really wanted to have someone not be with us this evening, they would’ve just sent Joe Biden.”

There were moments when the speech veered into tense territory — Trump suggested that if the money they raised was going to “looters and rioters in Minneapolis,” Harris would have shown up, and said that Harris had the “mental faculties of a child.”

In a post on his platform, Truth Social, before Thursday’s event, Trump suggested that Harris should be penalized for skipping the charity dinner.

“She should be here, or lose the Catholic Vote!”

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Violet Jira is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.