The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, a decades-old annual event in New York City, is typically an evening of lighthearted fare, with political and cultural leaders taking turns poking fun at one another and themselves.
But former President Donald Trump landed like a bomb onstage at the charity event on Thursday night, delivering a profanity-laden speech that saw him alternate between raging about the unfairness of his legal situation and taking hostile swipes at his enemies.
Trump lashed out at President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and the transgender community over the course of roughly 30 minutes.
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The white tie dinner, in which money is raised for Catholic charities, has customarily marked the last time both major party presidential candidates appear on the same stage before the election. Harris said last month that a conflicting campaign event would keep her from attending the event, something that Trump repeatedly seized on in his speech.
“But I must say, I was shocked when I heard that Kamala was skipping the Al Smith dinner,” he said. “I’d really hoped that she would come, because we can’t get enough of hearing her beautiful laugh. She laughs like crazy. We would recognize it anyplace in this room.”
He was frequently economical with his words, jabbing at Harris and Biden with a single insult. “We have someone in the White House who can barely talk, barely put together two coherent sentences, who seems to have mental faculties of a child, is a person that has no intelligence whatsoever—but enough about Kamala Harris,” Trump quipped.
The former president suggested he couldn’t wait to wash his hands of the vice president after Election Day. “When we hopefully win, dispose of her, I’ll like her a lot, but right now I can’t stand her,” he said.
Trump’s speech veered into transphobia as he speculated on Harris’ election chances. Addressing Schumer, he said, “He looks glum. But look on the bright side. Consider how woke your party has become, if she loses, you still have a chance to become the first woman president.”
The former president cracked another transphobic joke later in targeting Harris’ running mate. “I used to think the Democrats were crazy for saying men have periods, but then I met Tim Walz,” Trump said.
He and Schumer were photographed together by the Associated Press as the dinner ended, speaking while seated at a table. The New York Post reported that Schumer and Trump had been assigned seats close to each other, “with only Cardinal Dolan between them.”
Dolan was in the audience as Trump swore up a storm onstage.
“I don’t give a s--- if this is comedy or not,” he said.
But the most important person who figured into Trump’s speech was, of course, himself. “I’m supposed to tell a few self-deprecating jokes,” he told the audience. “So here it goes,” he said, pausing for effect. “Nope. I’ve got nothing. I’ve got nothing!”
Trump added, “I guess I just do not see the point in taking shots at myself when other people have been shooting at me for a long time.”
The reference to two recent assassination attempts provided a means for Trump to segue into self-pity. He said he’d suffered more than Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson. “There’s never been a president that has been treated so badly as me,” he complained.
