Former President Donald Trump was the sole-featured speaker at the 79th annual Al Smith charity dinner in New York after Vice President Kamala Harris declined an invitation to speak, choosing instead to continue on the campaign stump in Wisconsin.
Trump repeatedly referenced Harris’s absence at the white-tie bipartisan dinner, his third time speaking at the event. Comedian Jim Gaffigan emceed the event and has recently played Harris’s running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), on Saturday Night Live, while Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, hosted the event.
Harris did, however, pre-record a video that was aired during the dinner, named in honor of former Democratic New York governor Alfred E. Smith. (Smith was also the first Catholic to be nominated for president by a major political party.)
Harris was booed when her absence was first mentioned during the event. The dinner is normally the last event before the election where the two major-party candidates share the same stage.
Trump made sure to repeatedly attack Harris for snubbing the charity dinner, calling it “very disrespectful.”
But he did find the humor in Harris’s absence.
“I 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,” Trump said, referencing the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020.
“But I don’t think Kamala has given up yet. She hasn’t. Instead of attending tonight, she’s in Michigan receiving Communion from Gretchen Whitmer,” Trump also said, referring to a controversial video of Whitmer feeding a kneeling Liz Plank Doritos in a manner reminiscent of the Catholic practice of Eucharist.
“The last Democrat not to attend this important event was Walter Mondale, and it did not go very well for him. He lost 49 states and he won one: Minnesota. So I said, there’s no way I’m missing it,” said Trump. “He was expected to do well, and it didn’t work out. It shows you there is a God.”