Al Smith Dinner 2016: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton Poke Fun at Each Other
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have poked fun at each other at a charity dinner, just one day after their bitter final debate.
Hillary Clinton laughed as Donald Trump joked about her well-paid speeches and the FBI investigation into her private email.
However, the Republican nominee was booed when he joked that she hated Catholics.
The annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in New York is a white-tie gala that every four years features the presidential candidates.
There is a tradition that the rivals stand up and make jokes about each other, but this year it comes after one of the most rancorous campaigns in memory.
At their final debate in Las Vegas, Donald Trump called Hillary Clinton a “nasty woman” and they both interrupted each other throughout. They refused to shake hands before or after.
Donald Trump’s nickname for her is “Crooked Hillary” and he has threatened to appoint a special prosecutor to have her jailed if he becomes president.
Hillary Clinton has said Donald Trump is running a “hateful, divisive campaign” and is unfit to take the highest office.
However, at the New York event, they briefly put their differences aside and sat just one seat apart, with Cardinal Timothy Dolan between them.
When they entered and took their seats, they did not shake hands or make eye contact, but when Donald Trump stood up to speak, he gave Hillary Clinton a friendly double-pat on her shoulder.
The billionaire joked that this crowd – of about 1,500 people – was Hillary Clinton’s biggest audience yet, and in a dig at her Wall Street connections, he said it would be unusual for her to be with so many corporate leaders and not get paid.
However, when he said Hillary Clinton was so corrupt she got booted off the Watergate commission, boos rang out.
They resurfaced when, in a reference to emails hacked within Hillary Clinton’s campaign team, Donald Trump said she was “pretending not to hate Catholics”. It was one of the few occasions when the smile left Hillary Clinton’s face.
Perhaps Donald Trump’s best line was when he referred in jest to his wife Melania’s plagiarized speech in July, which borrowed from First Lady Michelle Obama.
Then Hillary Clinton stood up and said: “We’ll either have the first female president or the first president who started a Twitter war with Cher.”
Instead of seeing the Statue of Liberty being a beacon of hope, Donald Trump rates her looks as a “four” or “maybe a five” if she loses the torch and tablet, and changes her hair, Hillary Clinton joked.