WASHINGTON: In an election season stewing with rancor and bitterness, several American politicians, including MAGA supremo Donald Trump and his rival Kamala Harris (over video) exchanged barbs on Thursday at a Catholic charity dinner in New York traditionally known for good-natured bipartisan ribbing.
Known more for his peevish and petulant insults than for any elegant humor, Trump managed to get in a few zingers in a mostly Democratic gathering, some of which, by his own admission, wasn’t funny.
He began well enough, joking that he didn’t see the point of taking shots at himself “when other people have been shooting at me,” but that was about the only bit of self-effacement he allowed, explaining, “Tradition holds that I’m supposed to tell a few self-deprecating jokes this evening. So here it goes. Nope. I’ve got nothing. There’s nothing to say.”
About the only good-natured joke he essayed was — “Unfortunately, Governor Walz isn’t here himself. But don’t worry, he’ll say that he was” — a jab at the Democratic Veep nominee falsely claiming he was in Afghanistan and in China during momentous events there.
Rest were mostly crude insults that barely elicited any laughter, to the extent Trump twice asked if people got the joke. Among them: “We have someone in the White House who can barely talk, barely put together two coherent sentences, who seems to have the mental faculties of a child. It’s a person that has nothing going, no intelligence whatsoever. But enough about Kamala Harris.”
Trump also took a jab at Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff’s extramarital affair with a nanny during his first marriage, saying, “The only piece of advice I would have for her in the event that she wins is not to let her husband Doug anywhere near the nannies.” Amid groans, Trump himself said, “That’s a nasty one. I told these idiots that gave me this stuff, that’s too tough,” as his wife Melania, making a rare appearance with him, sat next to him stone-faced.
The fact that it was a Catholic event did not inhibit the use of expletives and references to sex and infidelity. Emcee Jim Gaffigan, who plays Tim Walz on Saturday Night Live, drew gasps at the outset with this zinger: “During the first and only debate, President Trump talked about migrants taking cats and eating them. If you’re keeping track at home, this is the second time grabbing a kitty has been part of a campaign issue,” artfully substituting kitty for the word pussy Trump had used in the Access Hollywood tape to boast how he could grab female genitalia.
Harris did not attend the dinner citing other commitments, but sent a video message with a couple of feeble jokes, promising a comedian that she wouldn’t mock Catholics at a Catholic charity event, because “that would be like criticizing Detroit in Detroit” — a jab at Trump doing exactly that.
Still, there were moments of rare in-person bonhomie in the final month of an furious election campaign in which humor among candidates has been at a premium amid all-pervasive bitterness.
Those in attendance included Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. New York Attorney General Letitia James (who is prosecuting a case against Trump) and former New York City Mayors Michael Bloomberg and Bill de Blasio, and current Mayor Eric Adams, who was at the recipient of arguably Trump’s best joke of the evening: “Well, I had better wrap up, because Mayor Adams told me earlier that I needed to make this one very quick… the city has reserved this room for a large group of illegal aliens coming in from Texas.”