The boos began when he said, “Hillary is so corrupt...” And it only got worse from there.

It’s tempting to say that Donald Trump’s speech at the Al Smith Dinner on Thursday night went over like a fart in church. This was an annual fundraiser for Catholic charities, after all, hosted in Manhattan by the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan. But passing gas in the house of God doesn’t do justice to how shameful and embarrassing the Republican nominee was at the dais at the Waldorf Astoria, turning what’s traditionally a forum for White House hopefuls to tell lighthearted jokes into a pulpit for cruel remarks about the Democratic nominee, who was seated mere feet away.

“Hillary believes it’s vital to deceive the people by having one public policy and totally different policy in private,” Trump said. “For example, here she is tonight in public, pretending not to hate Catholics.”



This, as you can imagine, didn’t go over well.

I've been to this dinner many times. Never saw anyone get booed this way during a speech. — Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) October 21, 2016

Wow @realDonaldTrump is creating a really awkward situation at the Al Smith dinner. People are not laughing. #Yikes — Katie Couric (@katiecouric) October 21, 2016

#Yikes indeed. Trump bombed big league, to use his favorite phrase, and he did so on his home turf, surrounded by the members of the New York elite he’s always yearned to be part of. It was a high-profile, high-society humiliation just over two weeks before the election, and it brings Trump full circle from the night of comedy when, some suspect, he resolved to run for president: the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner.