Day after debate, Trump Clinton square off again at roast

Jacque67 · October 20, 2016

Bitter presidential rivals Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have one more face-to-face showdown before Election Day. And theyre supposed to make it funny.

The venue Thursday night just 24 hours after their third and final debate is the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in New York, a white-tie gala that every four years becomes a showcase for presidential politics. Tradition dictates that the candidates deliver humorous remarks poking fun at each other and themselves, a jovial custom that seems hard to envision amid such an ugly campaign.

Trump regularly calls Clinton, Crooked Hillary, says hed put her in jail if he wins the presidency, and declared during Wednesdays debate that she was a nasty woman. Clinton says Trump lives in his own reality, is running a hateful, divisive campaign and lacks the temperament to be president.

They will sit just one seat apart for the evening, with New Yorks Cardinal Timothy Dolan acting as the only buffer.

I certainly expect that the dinner will be what its always been: an opportunity for two candidates to put aside partisan politics for the evening, said Joseph Zwilling, the spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York, which hosts the dinner. I anticipate that we will have good humor and civility that this dinner has been always been known for.

The unprecedentedly bitter campaign between Clinton and Trump could threaten the ecumenical goodwill that has defined previous roasts. Since 1960, at least one of the major party nominees has appeared at nearly every election year dinner, which is traditionally the last time the nominees share a stage before voters go to the polls.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/day-after-debate-trump-clinton-square-off-again-at-roast/2016/10/20/99b56550-96a4-11e6-9cae-2a3574e296a6_story.html