Vice President Kamala Harris reportedly said she is skipping the 79th annual Al Smith charity dinner in New York, a traditional event in which presidential candidates roast each other.

Former President Donald Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Monday that “it will be an honor” to attend the dinner, scheduled for Oct. 17 at the New York Hilton Midtown. But Harris’ campaign said she wants to spend time campaigning in battleground states.

“It’s sad, but not surprising, that Kamala has decided not to attend,” Trump wrote in his post. “I don’t know what she has against our Catholic friends, but it must be a lot, because she certainly hasn’t been very nice to them; in fact, Catholics are literally being persecuted by this Administration. Any Catholic that votes for Comrade Kamala Harris should have their head examined.”

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who acts as host for the dinner, has been highly critical of Democrats, writing a 2018 Wall Street Journal editorial that carried the headline, “The Democrats Abandon Catholics.”

“It will be great to see so many wonderful people there, including Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan,” Trump wrote. “We know the Spirit of Al Smith, the first Catholic Nominee of a Major Party, and John F. Kennedy, the FIRST Catholic President, will be in the room with us that night.”

In 2020, Trump and Joe Biden appeared at the event virtually because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and in 2016, Trump and Hillary Clinton spoke.

The dinner is named after the first major-party Roman Catholic presidential nominee, four-term Democrat New York Gov. Al Smith, who lost to Republican Herbert Hoover in the 1928 election. It would be more than three decades before another Catholic candidate, Democrat John F. Kennedy in 1960, was nominated by a major party.

Since 1960, the dinner featured the presidential candidates during elections years, but not always, according to The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation. 

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson spoke but his Republican opponent, Barry Goldwater, was not invited. In 1972, Vice President Spiro Agnew spoke instead of President Richard Nixon. In 1984, Democrat Walter Mondale did not attend. In 1992, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush did not attend because a presidential debate was scheduled for the same night.

In 1996 and 2004, neither presidential candidate was invited. The vice presidential candidates, Democrat Al Gore and Republican Jack Kemp, spoke in 1996 and neither George W. Bush nor John Kerry, an abortion rights supporter who was the first Catholic since Kennedy to win the presidential nomination of a major party, were invited in 2004.

The New York Times reported that Clinton and Bob Dole were not invited in 1996 because John Cardinal O’Connor, the host of the event, was angry at Clinton for vetoing a bill that would have outlawed partial-birth abortions.

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