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Crowd Boos Trump as Candidates Trade Barbs at Al Smith Dinner

Al Smith

The candidates' jokes about each other at a traditional Catholic charity fundraiser took a dark turn as the crowd turned on Trump.

The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, an annual fundraiser for Catholic charities, is typically the last time before an election that the presidential candidates share a stage. In this event, the politicians roast themselves and each other, letting their hair down to a degree after the staunch formality of the debate cycle.

This election, needless to say, has been anything but usual. The debates have already supplied ample fodder for jokes on Saturday Night Live and Twitter at large. Despite high tensions between the candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton arrived at the New York event with zingers ready. As usual, some of the jokes landed better than others, but the big surprise of the night came when attendees began booing Trump's jokes, which were more like jabs.

Trump did have some strong moments, notably when he made fun of his wife with regard to the speech she apparently plagiarized from Michelle Obama. While the joke went over very well, it's worth noting that the closest Donald came to good-natured self-deprecation was to throw his wife under the bus. He also got a laugh when he referenced another instance of his sexist attacks on women, saying that after listening to Hillary rattle on and on, he doesn't think so badly of Rosie O'Donnell any more.

When Trump got to jokes in which he called Clinton "so corrupt she got kicked off the Watergate Commission" and claimed she was pretending to not hate Catholics, the crowd began booing, which prompted Trump to wonder aloud, "I don't know who they're angry at, Hillary, you or I [sic]?" "You!" a voice can be heard responding, while another tells him to "get off the stage." Trump failed to read the room and pressed on, claiming that Clinton hadn't been laughing as much as everyone else (she had) and then just completely bombing the rest of the speech.

For her part, Clinton had some good lines, especially with regard to Trump's imagined assessment of the Statue of Liberty as a "four." Highlights of each candidate's speeches as compiled by CBS News can be seen below, as well as CNN's coverage of the portion where Trump completely lost the crowd.

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