“Roasts” are a perennial of US politics, an opportunity for candidates to let their hair down and poke light-hearted fun at each other. But with Donald Trump in the mix, traditions tend to suffer.
The great and the good of New York society will gather on Thursday night for the annual Al Smith Dinner, an annual charity fund-raiser organised by the Catholic Church.
Every four years, it usually serves as a stop for both candidates to come together in the final stretch of the White House campaign and roast each other - and themselves - with good-humoured speeches.
Historically, it marks the last time they share a stage before Election Day, which this year will be on November 5.
Trump will be there. But the Republican’s Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris is skipping the white-tie event in New York, which is being hosted by Cardinal Timothy Dolan and compered by comedian Jim Gaffigan.
Dolan, who is also archbishop for New York, said he was “disappointed” at her no-show, which comes after Trump was booed at the 2016 dinner for launching into a personal attack on his Democratic opponent that year, Hillary Clinton.
The Harris campaign said she was staying focussed on the campaign trail.
But Cardinal Dolan is a divisive figure, having attracted criticism from other Catholics for praising Trump in the past. He gave a prayer at the Republican’s presidential inauguration in January 2017.
Commenting on Harris’s decision to skip the dinner, the archbishop said last month: “We’re not used to this. We don’t know how to handle it.
“This hasn’t happened in 40 years, since [1984 Democratic candidate] Walter Mondale turned down the invitation. And remember, he lost 49 out of 50 states [to Ronald Reagan]. I don’t want to say there’s a direct connection there.”
Trump will be hoping to profit from Harris’s absence as he looks to lock in votes from religious conservatives, with the Republicans on the back foot more broadly with voters owing to their hard line on abortion.
He confirmed last month that he would speak at the dinner and lashed out at her skipping the event as “sad, but not surprising”.
But the Catholic organisers will be hoping in turn that Trump pays more heed to the good-natured tradition of the dinner, after his sour appearance in 2016. (In 2020, he and Joe Biden addressed the event virtually because of the Covid pandemic.)
However, Trump has shown time and again that he is no respecter of political traditions such as roasts, when the recipient of comedy barbs is meant to laugh along and take them in good spirit.
It was one such roast that many believe sparked his presidential ambitions, when he attended the 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner and was roundly mocked by Barack Obama for peddling conspiracy theories.
The New York dinner raises money for the Alfred E. Smith Foundation, which commemorates the four-time New York governor Al Smith.
He was the first Catholic presidential nominee for a major party when he was chosen by the Democrats in 1928.
He lost to Republican candidate Herbert Hoover, and it was not until 1960 that Americans elected their first Catholic president, John F. Kennedy.
