Hours after lobbing a number of below-the-belt insults at the Al Smith charity dinner in New York, former President Donald Trump took to Fox News on Friday morning to bemoan the lack of a teleprompter he could use at the event, while also revealing that he got some help from “a couple of people” at the conservative-leaning network with his jokes.
When asked by one of the anchors who wrote his jokes, Trump replied: “Well, I’ve had a lot of people helping, a lot of people. A couple of people from Fox, actually — I shouldn’t say that, but they wrote some jokes.”
A spokesperson for the network denied Trump's comment, telling Spectrum News: "Fox News confirmed that no employee or freelancers wrote the jokes."
While past speakers have turned to comedians for help for humorous events — Barack Obama enlisted the help of then-“Daily Show” writer Kevin Bleyer for a past White House Correspondents Dinner, for instance — it’s somewhat unusual that a news outlet would fill that role.
Trump also referenced not being able to use a teleprompter as he delivered his remarks.
“They told me it’s only teleprompter for the comedian,” Trump said, adding: “So I had to do it sort of like … and I liked it better, I think I liked it better. But when I went, I said, ‘is this a teleprompter speech,’ and I had a really long speech, and they said ‘sir, we don’t use teleprompter.’ And I get up there and I see the comedian [emcee Jim Gaffigan] used it.”
He said similarly as he opened his remarks on Thursday night.
“They told me under no circumstances are you allowed to use a teleprompter, and I got up here and I see there’s this beautiful teleprompter,” Trump said at the dinner. “So here I am.”
The former president stumbled as he delivered some of his jokes, which ranged from his typical grievances and falsehoods to crude and, at times, profane insults at his opponents, particularly those aimed at Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.
Harris was not in attendance, opting instead to campaign in battleground Wisconsin, but she did deliver a video message to the crowd alongside comedian Molly Shannon, who reprised her Catholic school girl character Mary Katherine Gallagher from “Saturday Night Live.”
“It shows you there is a God,” Trump said of Harris’ absence.
During quadrennial election years, the annual dinner benefitting Catholic charities typically features the major presidential candidates trading light-hearted barbs and poking fun at themselves.
Trump, whose speech hammered his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton during the 2016 dinner, used his time on Thursday night to insult the intelligence of Harris and President Joe Biden, continually mispronounce his opponent’s first name, reference an extramarital affair that Harris’ husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, admitted to in his previous marriage, joked about transgender women in disparaging terms and hammered other Democrats in attendance, like former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio.
“He was a terrible mayor,” Trump said of de Blasio. “I don’t give a s*** if this is comedy or not.”
Trump also joked about the city’s current mayor, Eric Adams, who is under indictment for federal bribery and fraud charges. He wished Adams “good luck” with his legal situation, while baselessly alleging it had to do with the mayor’s criticism of the Biden administration’s migrant policies.
“They went after you, mayor,” Trump said. “Nine-and-a-half months ago, I said, ‘he just said something bad about the administration, he’s going to be indicted any moment.’ And guess what happened? But you’re gonna win, so good luck, good luck. I don’t like what they do.”
Trump has made similar comments baselessly blaming the Biden administration — and, by extension, Harris — for the criminal prosecutions against him. There is no evidence linking the White House to any of the criminal cases against Trump.
That was far from the only time Trump referenced his legal woes, saying: “They’ve gone after me. Mr. Mayor [Adams], you’re peanuts compared to what they’ve done to me.”
Of Harris, Trump tried to tie her to her current boss in an effort to diminish her mental fitness.
“We have someone in the White House who can barely talk, barely put together two coherent sentences, who seems to have mental faculties of a child. It’s a person that has nothing going, no intelligence whatsoever,” Trump said. “But enough about Kamala Harris.”
"The only piece of advice I would have for her in the event that she wins is not to let her husband Doug anywhere near the nannies,” Trump said, referring to Emhoff, who admitted to an affair with a teacher that worked at a school his children attended long before he met Harris.
When the joke was met with groans, Trump blamed his joke writers: “That’s a nasty one. I told these idiots that gave me this stuff, that’s too tough.”
Typically, the candidates use their Al Smith dinner speech to poke fun at themselves. Trump declined to do so.
“Tradition holds that I’m supposed to tell a few self-deprecating jokes this evening, so here it goes: Nope. I’ve got nothing. There’s nothing to say,” Trump said of himself.
“I just don't see the point of taking shots at myself when other people have been shooting at me,” Trump said, referring to the two failed assassination attempts on his life.
He also attacked the “White Dudes for Harris” group — an informal coalition largely comprising Caucasian males supporting the vice president — in crude fashion, saying that he’s “not worried” about them “because their wives and their wives' lovers are all voting for me.”
And to Catholics, Trump declared: “You've got to vote for me. You better remember: I’m here, and she’s not.”
Trump’s campaign called the roast a “knockout,” while Harris’ campaign was less than kind about his performance.
“Donald Trump struggled to read scripted notes written by his handlers, repeatedly complaining that he couldn't use a teleprompter,” Harris campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa said. “He stumbled over his words and lashed out when the crowd wouldn't laugh with him. The rare moments he was off script, he went on long incomprehensible rambles, reminding Americans how unstable he’s become. And of course he made it all about himself.”
Harris, in her video with Shannon, took a number of light jabs at Trump, with the comedian in character giving the vice president advice that “Thou shalt not bear false witness to thy neighbor.”
“Indeed, especially thy neighbor’s election results,” Harris rebutted.
She also told Harris to not say anything negative about Catholics at the Catholic event.
“I would never do that, no matter where I was. That would be like criticizing Detroit in Detroit,” Harris said, referring to Trump’s insult of the city while campaigning in the city.