This is no joke
Vice President Kamala Harris decided to shun former President Trump and skip this year's Al Smith Dinner, a major election-year event that has been attended by generations of candidates. Harris will be the first to skip the dinner since Walter Mondale, who ran unsuccessfully for president in 1984.
Trump has agreed to attend the Archdiocese of New York's 79th annual Democratic Party dinner on October 17, but Harris' campaign says he will instead campaign in key battleground states in the final stretch before Election Day, the campaign told The Washington Post.
Since Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy attended together in 1960, it has been a tradition for both presidential candidates to attend the dinner and for the candidates to take turns giving speeches in which they disparage each other.
Archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling told The Post that it had been confirmed that Harris would not be attending on Saturday.
“It's a shame she's not coming because this is a night of unity regardless of race, creed or background, putting aside political differences to support the cause of helping women and children in need,” he said.
“I hope she reconsiders.”
Former President Donald Trump's campaign then contacted the archdiocese to confirm that Trump would be attending, Zwilling said.
Harris' team told organizers that she would intend to attend the dinner as president of the United States if elected.
First held in 1946, the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner raises millions of dollars each year to help New Yorkers in need.
Presidential elections are held every year, and during election years it is customary for presidential candidates to make regular appearances and engage in light-hearted bickering in the name of charitable giving.
Zwilling said Harris would be the first to decline the invitation since former President Jimmy Carter's vice president, Walter Mondale, declined during his losing race to President Richard Nixon in 1984.
In 1996, the Archdiocese of New York decided not to invite then-President Bill Clinton and his Republican opponent Bob Dole, reportedly after Clinton vetoed legislation banning late-term abortions, according to the Associated Press.
Trump drew attention at the 2016 dinner, where he was booed by members of the audience who felt he had crossed a line by saying his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, was corrupt and hated Catholics.
Both President Trump and President Biden spoke via pre-recorded video at the first-ever virtual Al Smith Dinner, held at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, but jokes were few and far between as they made last-minute appeals to Catholic voters.
In his speech, Trump slammed Democrats as “anti-Catholic” and emphasized his position on abortion, a key Catholic issue, calling himself a “defender of the sacred right to life.”
Biden, a devout Catholic, took a lighter approach at the time, saying his faith had “helped me get through times of darkness” at various points in his life.
The dinner is named after the former New York governor who was the first Roman Catholic to be appointed president in 1928. This year's event will be held at the New York Hilton Midtown.
