Four years after Trump broke with custom to use the Alfred E Smith Memorial Foundation dinner to direct an attack on his then-rival Hillary Clinton, instead of mocking himself, he used the event again to denounce the Democrats.

Mr. Trump began his pre-recorded remarks broadcast to praise the Catholic Church for its role in New York City and in the nation outside it.

“The amazing tradition of this organization of providing Catholic charity represents the best of not only this city, but of this country,” he said.

However, he then used the rhetoric to attack China because of the Corona virus, which has killed more than 200,000 Americans, a number that many critics say Trump is at least partially responsible for, and then claimed anti-Catholic prejudice “reigns” in the Democratic Party. Party.

Defending his decision to nominate conservative law professor and Catholicism professor Amy Connie Barrett to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court as a result of the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Mr Trump insisted that the White House would stand by her as she conducts the nomination process.

“We will not defend any attacks against Judge Barrett’s faith,” he said.

“Anti-Catholic intolerance has absolutely no place in the United States of America.”

One of the ironies in Mr. Trump’s comments was that while he claimed he knew about the Catholic faith because he once lived next door to “a wonderful Catholic Church,” Democratic candidate Joe Biden is from an Irish-American Catholic family.

In his dinner notes, Mr. Biden said his faith helped him when he suffered a loss in his life – his first wife, daughter, and eldest son.

He said, “I know for me that my Catholic faith helped me through the darkness, as I had to bury parts of my soul in the earth, and in the end I found a goal to live a life worthy of those I lost.”

And throughout my life and public service. You have been guided by the principles of Catholic social belief … What you do minimally among us, you do to me. We have an obligation to each other. We cannot serve ourselves at the expense of others. “

For many years, a dinner that Catholic charities took advantage of and often one of the last opportunities for presidential candidates to participate in the pre-election stage has seen candidates making jokes about themselves.

In 2008, John McCain joked that he fired his entire campaign team. “All of their positions will now be filled by a man named Joe the Plumber,” he cracked.

In turn, Barack Obama said: “John McCain is working on something. There was a point in my life when I started hanging out with a very ugly crowd, I have to be honest. These guys were dangerous mortal blows; they were low-life. They were unrepentant bad guys. : I was a member of the US Senate. “

During a 2016 dinner, Trump showed off the charm of either, and when Clinton attacked he was booed.

“I wasn’t really sure if Hillary was going to be here tonight, because, I guess, you didn’t email her invitation. Or maybe she did, and you just found out with the awesome WikiLeaks.” He said.

“We learned a lot from WikiLeaks. For example, Hillary believes it is necessary to deceive people by having one public policy and a completely different policy in secret.”

Clinton also indicated.

“Donald looks at the Statue of Liberty and sees 4 – maybe 5 if she loses the torch and the tablet and changes her hair.”