Vice President Kamala Harris has opted out of the Al Smith charity dinner, a traditional pre-election campaign stop that is often one of the only times presidential candidates come face-to-face outside of a debate. The event is set to be held in New York City on Oct. 17 and hosted by comedian Jim Gaffigan, who shared the official invite for the Catholic fundraiser on Instagram earlier this month. “I guess the next and final time we will see these two kids together will be at the 79th Al Smith Memorial Dinner on October 17th,” the comedian posted later after it became evident that there would be no second debate. Donald Trump has not said whether or not he plans to attend the event without Harris present. And while the 2020 dinner abandoned the typical roast format as part of a stripped down, COVID-era virtual version, Trump and Hillary Clinton did trade barbs in 2016. But while Clinton opted for jokes, Trump drew boos from the crowd for saying, with no apparent sense of humor, that Clinton was “pretending not to hate Catholics.”
