Former President Donald Trump blasted Vice President Kamala Harris for skipping the Al Smith Dinner in New York City on Thursday.
He hilariously quipped that she was busy “receiving communion” from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI).
By not participating, Harris became the presidential nominee to miss out since former Vice President Walter Mondale (D), who served in the Carter administration, didn’t go to the event during his 1984 presidential campaign.
Trump’s speech at the 79th annual Al Smith Dinner to benefit Catholic charities had the audience roaring with laughter.
“All polls are indicating I’m leading big with the Catholic vote, as I should be, but I don’t think Kamala has given up yet. She hasn’t,” he teed up.
“Instead of attending tonight, she’s in Michigan receiving Communion from Gretchen Whitmer,” Trump cracked.
His quip was in reference to a weird video Whitmer appeared in last week, when she controversially fed a kneeling kneeling influencer a Dorito chip.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer feeds a left-wing podcaster a Dorito as if it’s the Eucharist while wearing a Kamala/Walz hat.
But word on the street is that JD Vance is weird and that MAGA is a cultpic.twitter.com/zgvq5sZntZ
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) October 10, 2024
The stunt was widely criticized as a jab at the Catholic ritual of taking Holy Communion.
Despite the attempts of her staffers and the influencer to brush off the video as part of a TikTok trend, Whitmer eventually apologized.
Trump noted that Harris would have actually bothered to attend the dinner if it was benefiting rioters, rather than women and children.
“But if you really wanted Vice President Harris to accept your invitation, I guess you should have told her the funds were going to bail out the looters and riders in Minneapolis,” he cackled.
In 2020, Harris put out a call for donations to support the Minneapolis Freedom Fund that was used to bail out destructive protesters.
Rather than showing up in person, Harris decided to send a mocking video that was largely disliked by attendees.
Harris enlisted Molly Shannon to bring back her famous Saturday Night Live character, Catholic school girl Mary Katherine Gallagher, for the skit.
“Is there anything you don’t think I should bring up tonight?” Harris asked Shannon as Gallagher.
“Well, don’t lie. Thou shall not bear false witness to thy neighbor,” Gallagher said in a mockery of Catholicism’s Ten Commandments.
“Well, indeed, especially thy neighbor’s election results,” Harris said in a shot at Trump.
Gallagher told Harris that she should not “say anything negative about Catholics.”
“I would never do that no matter where I was. That would be like criticizing Detroit, in Detroit,” Harris said in her second attack on Trump.
Though she took the opportunity to get in digs about her opponent, Harris said that the dinner offered a “rare opportunity to set aside partisanship.”
The skit was panned by critics, who called it “legit cringeworthy,” “historically bad,” and “disrespectful to Catholics.”
Comedian Jim Gaffigan, who was the Master of Ceremonies at the 79th annual dinner, torched Harris for ditching the event.
“You know, this event has been referred to as the Catholic Met Gala,” Gaffigan said to the audience.
“Twenty-two percent of Americans identify as Catholics. Catholics will be a key demographic in every battleground state. I’m sorry, why is Vice President Harris not here?”
“I mean, consider this: this is a room full of Catholics and Jews in New York City, this is a lay-up for the Democratic nominee,” he went on.
“I mean, in her defense, she did find time to appear on ‘The View,’ Howard Stern, Colbert — and the longtime staple of campaigning, the ‘Call Her Daddy’ podcast…”
Gaffigan mocked Harris fellow liberals who have claimed Trump is a “threat to democracy.”
“This has been an interesting presidential campaign,” Gaffigan noted. “The Democrats have been telling us Trump’s reelection is a threat to democracy.”
In fact, they were so concerned of this threat, they staged a coup, ousted their democratically elected incumbent, and installed Kamala Harris,” he sniped. “In other words, all her dreams have come true.”
He also made a quip about the media’s claim’s about “secret Trump voters.”
“The media has begun discussing the phenomena of ‘secret Trump voters’ — people who publicly say they’d never vote for Trump, but then when they go in the voting booth, they do,” he began.
“It’s a small group,” the comedian joked. “They’re called the ‘Biden family.’”