By MEG KINNARD
Donald Trump confirmed Monday that he can be the only featured speaker at this 12 months’s Al Smith charity dinner in New York, sometimes a good-humored and bipartisan political occasion that Vice President Kamala Harris mentioned she is skipping in favor of battleground state campaigning.
The previous president and present Republican presidential nominee confirmed in a Fact Social publish on Monday that he would converse on the Oct. 17 dinner, calling it “unhappy, however not stunning” that Harris had opted to not attend.
The gala benefiting Catholic Charities historically has been used to advertise collegiality, with presidential candidates from each events showing on the identical night time and buying and selling barbs. However on Saturday, Harris’ marketing campaign mentioned the Democratic nominee wouldn’t go to the occasion, breaking with presidential tradition so she might marketing campaign as an alternative in a battleground state lower than three weeks earlier than Election Day.
Harris’ crew needs her to spend as a lot time as potential within the battleground states that can determine the election reasonably than in closely Democratic New York, a marketing campaign official mentioned, talking on the situation of anonymity to debate marketing campaign plans and confirming a call first reported by CNN. Her crew instructed organizers that she can be keen to attend as president if she’s elected, the official mentioned.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who performs a distinguished function within the dinner, has been extremely essential of Democrats, writing a 2018 Wall Road Journal op-ed that carried the headline, “The Democrats Abandon Catholics.” In his Fact Social publish, Trump mentioned Harris “definitely hasn’t been very good” to Catholics, saying that Catholic voters who assist her “ought to have their head examined.”
A Harris marketing campaign official mentioned Catholics for Harris-Walz is working to register individuals to vote and become involved in outreach throughout the nation. Trump’s publish stems partly from 2018 questions that then-Sen. Harris posed to a federal judicial nominee about his membership within the Knights of Columbus, a lay Catholic fraternal group. Harris requested the nominee if he agreed with the anti-abortion views of the group’s chief, views that broadly align with the church’s stance.
The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Basis Dinner is known as for the previous New York governor, a Democrat and the primary Roman Catholic to be nominated for president by a serious social gathering. He was handily defeated by Herbert Hoover in 1928. The dinner raises tens of millions of {dollars} for Catholic charities and has historically proven that these vying to steer the nation can get alongside, or fake to, for one night time.
It’s change into a convention for presidential candidates ever since Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy appeared collectively in 1960. In 1996, the Archdiocese of New York determined to not invite then-President Invoice Clinton and his Republican challenger, Bob Dole, reportedly as a result of Clinton vetoed a late-term abortion ban.
Trump and Joe Biden, who’s Catholic, each spoke on the fundraiser in 2020 when it was moved on-line due to COVID-19. Amid the pandemic and financial woes, there was no joking, and each candidates as an alternative used their speeches to enchantment to Catholic voters.
Each Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton attended in 2016. Trump was booed after calling Clinton corrupt and claiming she hated Catholics.
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Meg Kinnard reported from Chapin, South Carolina, and could be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP
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