Trump makes America laugh again

‘Tradition holds that I’m supposed to tell a few self-deprecating jokes this evening,’ said Donald Trump in his speech at the Al Smith Dinner in New York on Friday night. ‘So here it goes.’ He paused. ‘Nope. I’ve got nothing… There’s nothing to say. I guess I just don’t see the point at taking shots at myself when other people have been shooting at me.’ The crowd roared.

Many of the jokes were close to the bone: ‘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. But enough about Kamala Harris.’

We can’t know whether Harris herself would have laughed. She was the first presidential candidate in 40 years to miss the dinner, which has become famous for its speeches in which the two opponents make jibes at each other’s expense. Instead, she appeared only in a prerecorded video. Some Democratic operatives feared that her absence might upset the Catholic vote: this is a charity fundraiser organised by the Arch-diocese of New York. What would voters make of the Vice President’s priorities, especially in the swing state of Pennsylvania where a quarter of voters are Catholic?

In the end, however, her team needn’t have worried about a perceived snub. They should have worried that, unopposed and in the spotlight, Trump confirmed Democrats’ fears: he is still funny.

When Trump is down on his luck, his angry, vengeful reflexes kick in – and the former president has been in a slump for years. He lost the 2020 election. He failed to produce a ‘red wave’ in the 2022 midterms. He faces multiple indictments which have so far resulted in one conviction.