Harris to address Al Smith charity dinner by video, organizers say

NEW YORK (AP) —

Vice President Kamala Harris will address the Al Smith charity dinner by video Thursday night, after deciding to skip the event in person in a break with presidential campaign tradition, organizers said.

Former President Donald Trump is planning to attend in person.

The white tie event raises millions of dollars for Catholic charities and has traditionally offered presidential candidates from both parties the chance to trade light-hearted barbs in the election's final stretch.

Harris' campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Her team had previously said that, with just weeks to go, they wanted her to spend as much time as possible campaigning in battleground states that will decide the election, rather than detouring to heavily Democratic New York.

The Daily Caller was first to report that Harris would address the dinner by screen.

Both Trump and President Joe Biden, who is Catholic, spoke at a virtual version of the fundraiser in 2020, which was moved online due to concerns about large gatherings at the height of the pandemic.

In 2016, the dinner turned especially nasty when Trump unleashed on his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, drawing boos from the crowd as he called her “corrupt” and accused her of "pretending not to hate Catholics.”

The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner is named for the former New York governor, a Democrat who was the first Catholic to receive a major party nomination for president when he unsuccessfully ran for the White House in 1928.

The event has become a tradition for presidential candidates since Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy appeared together in 1960. In 1996, the Archdiocese of New York decided not to invite then-President Bill Clinton and his Republican challenger, Bob Dole, reportedly because Clinton vetoed a late-term abortion ban.