Donald Trump got booed tonight while appearing with Hillary Clinton at the Annual Alfred E. Smith charity dinner in Manhattan, a rarity for the 71-year old event. In fairness, the white-tie Waldorf Astoria clambake, named after four-term NY Governor and one-time Dem White House hopeful Alfred Smith, is traditionally an event at which the two presidential candidates show off their comedy chops.
But, of course, this year’s candidates have no comedy chops.
Trump started strong, but some in the crowd of about 1,000 began to part ways with his roast as the barbs got sharper, darker: “Hillary believes it’s vital to deceive the people by having one public policy, and a totally different policy in private.”
“That’s okay,” Trump said, as boos were heard, turning to Clinton to say, “I don’t know who they’re angry at, Hillary, you or I? For example, here she is tonight in public, pretending not to hate Catholics.”
“Now, if some of you haven’t noticed, Hillary isn’t laughing as much as the rest of us,” he persevered, as the booing continued. “That’s because she knows the jokes, and all of the jokes were given to her in advance of the dinner by Donna Brazile.”
The Catholic remark and the Brazil snark were reference to information put out by WikiLeaks that are reported to be hacked emails from the Clinton campaign.
It got even worse when he said Clinton believes it sometimes takes a village to accomplish things, adding, “like in Haiti, where she’s taken a number of them.”
He did much better with the crowd earlier in his address, when he’d talked about the that previous night’s final presidential debate.
“Last night, I called Hillary ‘A nasty woman.’ But this stuff is all relative,” he said. “After listening to Hillary rattle on, and on, and on, I don’t think so badly of Rosie O’Donnell anymore. In fact I’m actually starting to like Rosie a lot!”
He also noted that tonight’s even has proven the two candidates “can actually be civil to each other. Just before taking the dais, Hillary accidentally bumped into me and she very civilly said, ‘Pardon me’.”
The social setting, Trump said, gives the candidates the chance to meet members of the other’s team. “I got the chance to meet people working so hard to get her elected. There they are,” he said pointing, “the heads of NBC, CNN, CBS, ABC, there’s the New York Times and the Washington Post.”
“I really have to say, the media is even more biased this year than ever before,” Trump continued. “You want the proof? Michelle Obama gives a speech and everyone loves it! It’s fantastic! They think it’s absolutely great! My wife, Melania, gives the exact same speech and people get on her case! I don’t get it!”
With that, he asked his wife to stand. Melania Trump got a huge round of applause.
Hillary elicited some groans, though no actual boos, when it was her at-bat. “People look at the Statue of Liberty and see a proud symbol” of a nation of immigrants and a “beacon of hope. Donald looks at the Statue of Liberty and sees a 4. Maybe a 5, if she loses the torch and tablet and changes her hair.”
Noting there was no teleprompter, Clinton noted Trump had dismantled one of his at a recent rally speech, adding sympathetically that they can be “hard to keep up with and harder when you’re translating from the original Russian.”
She also snarked that Trump’s campaign manager Kellyann Conway being a “contractor he’s probably not even going to pay her.”
