“There’s a group called ‘White Dudes For Harris,’” former President Donald Trump said. “I’m not worried about them at all, because their wives and their wives’ lovers are all voting for me, every one of those people are voting for me.”
Per tradition, Trump spoke in front of more than 1,300 attendees at the 79th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in New York City Oct. 17, delivering jokes primarily aimed at Vice President Kamala Harris and the current administration’s shortcomings.
The foundation has invited presidential nominees to the white-tie dinner since 1960. While an amusing custom, it shows the Al Smith Foundation’s priorities: tradition over true beliefs. At the very least, the foundation should seek speakers who align with its professed Catholic values. Ultimately, it should quit inviting presidential candidates to the gala, period.
Started in 1946, the dinner honors the memory of Alfred E. Smith, a Roman Catholic who served as New York governor between 1918 and 1926.
Just because the foundation serves to honor the legacy of a great Roman Catholic politician doesn’t mean it is obliged to invite America’s irreverent presidential candidates to speak. It was a clever idea to invite candidates in the ’60s, but these days, “lighthearted” roasting in American politics is non-existent.
This year’s dinner took place in the glamorous New York Hilton Midtown hotel, with comedian Jim Gaffigan as master of ceremonies, and raised $8.9 million for impoverished women and children in New York.
For an event that seeks to honor the legacy of America’s first Roman Catholic to run for the U.S. presidency, it is foolish to tarnish the group’s reputation and allow presidential candidates a platform in which to spew toxic words at one another and — in Harris’ case — at Catholics.
Trump attended this year’s event while Harris opted to spend her evening campaigning in Wisconsin. She is the only invited presidential candidate to skip the dinner, with the exception of Democrat Walter Mondale in 1984. In place of her presence, Harris submitted a video which included an appearance from Mary Katherine Gallagher, a Saturday Night Live character played by Molly Shannon who died of unpopularity in the 1990s.
In the video, Harris attempts to give a serious address to attendees before Gallagher interrupts for “comedic relief,” poking fun at Catholics and Trump alike. The video reminded viewers — specifically Trump — to remember the eighth commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor,” particularly “against thy neighbor’s election results,” and that Jesus, the true fact-checker, would be present that evening.
After surviving two assassination attempts this summer, Trump has posted more religious content on his Instagram account, offering a prayer to St. Michael on Michaelmas and wishing the Virgin Mary a happy birthday on the Feast of the Nativity. But his lifestyle in the past has proven to be anything but religious.
Trump’s remarks at the event proved to be humorous and gave him several viral moments, but they were unsupportive of the foundation’s vision of promoting Al Smith’s Catholic beliefs and care for the least of these.
In his remarks, Trump spoke of a White House occupant who “can barely talk, barely put together two coherent sentences, who seems to have the mental faculties of a child. This is a person that has nothing going, no intelligence whatsoever. But enough about Kamala Harris.”
As a Catholic foundation, the event should seek to affirm the dignity of every human being as made in the image and likeness of God, or, as Ronald Reagan said in his 1984 Al Smith dinner address, “to love our fellow man.”
On the other hand, Harris has proven time and again that she has no regard for religious Americans, Catholic or not.
At the campaign event she skipped the foundation dinner for, Harris complained about Trump’s Supreme Court appointees who led to the overturn of Roe v. Wade.
Immediately following that portion of her speech, two pro-life attendees shouted “Jesus is Lord,” to which Harris replied, “Oh, you guys are at the wrong rally.” Waving goodbye to the two college juniors as security escorted them out of the venue, Harris allowed the crowd to cheer and applaud before adding, “No, I think you meant to go to the smaller one down the street.”
Harris didn’t have to acknowledge their presence. Instead, she chose to insult the students and make them the butt of her joke.
Rather than attending the foundation dinner and insulting Christians there, Harris chose to insult them on the campaign trail. And the foundation wants to invite a person like that to its dinner?
Trump and Harris serving as headline names surely helped the foundation hit its fundraising goal — raising $3.1 million more than its 2023 dinner — but in giving the two candidates a platform to make crude jokes, it failed to promote the true ideals of the organization.
If the foundation wishes to remain bipartisan, Catholic, and worthy of Americans’ trust as American politics becomes increasingly partisan, this year’s candidates should be as absent from its banquet as Harris has been from the border.
Tayte Christensen is a junior studying history.
