Fact-checking Tim Walz and JD Vance’s VP debate

(NEW YORK) — A presidential election tradition dating back to 1960 brought some laughs in New York City on Thursday night, but for the first time in 40 years, only one candidate will be on the dias.

Former President Donald Trump spoke at the New York Archdiocese’s annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner at the New York Hilton, where he was joined by his wife Melania Trump. Vice President Kamala Harris announced last month that she could not attend due to a conflicting campaign event but appeared at the dinner in a video.

“She is going to be campaigning in a battleground state that day, and the campaign wants to maximize her time in the battlegrounds this close to the election,” a campaign official told ABC News on Sept. 23.

The vice president campaigned in Wisconsin on Thursday.

Trump alternated between making jokes about Harris and some of the other attendees and the regular lines that he uses while campaigning, but he did acknowledged the event’s tradition of self-deprecating jokes and said one was coming before admitting, “Ah, I got nothing.”

Harris appeared in her video with “Saturday Night Live” character Mary Katherine Gallagher, played by Molly Shannon as an awkward Catholic school girl who dreams of being a superstar.

Harris asked Mary Katherine for advice on how to address the Catholic gathering.

“Is there anything that you think that maybe I shouldn’t bring up tonight?”

“Um, well, don’t lie,” Mary Katherine replied. “Thou shalt not bear false witness to thy neighbor.”

“Indeed, especially thy neighbor’s election results,” Harris said.

Trump chastised Harris in a Truth Social post before the event for not showing up.

“They didn’t give me the option of a video message, nor would I have done it. This is very disrespectful to everyone involved,” he said adding that Harris should lose the Catholic vote over this.

After Harris’ video played, Trump repeated that sentiment.

“It’s been a long tradition for both Democrat and Republican candidates for president of the United States to attend this dinner. Always. It’s a rule. Otherwise, bad things are going to happen to you from up there,” he said. “You can’t do what I just saw on that screen. But, my opponent feels like she does not have to be here, which is deeply disrespectful to the event and in particular, to our great Catholic community. Very disrespectful.”

Later, mentioning the charity behind the dinner, Trump took another shot at Harris, saying, “I guess you should have told her the funds were going to bail out the looters and rioters in Minneapolis, and she would have been here, guaranteed.”

Since 1960, the black-tie event has hosted both the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates and allowed them to “share self-deprecating humor” and raise money for the archdiocese’s charitable organizations.

It is named in honor of Alfred E. Smith, the former New York governor who was the first Catholic to be nominated to a major party’s presidential ticket.

The last time a presidential candidate could not attend the dinner was in 1984, when Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale bowed out.

The event was emceed by comedian Jim Gaffigan, who currently plays Gov. Tim Walz on “Saturday Night Live.”

Trump confirmed his attendance in a Truth Social post on Sept. 23, not long after Harris’ campaign announced she would not show up.

“It’s sad, but not surprising, that Kamala has decided not to attend,” he said in the post.

In the same post, Trump accused Harris of being anti-Catholic and repeated past claims, without evidence, that the administration was persecuting Catholics. President Joe Biden is the second Catholic president in American history and attends mass weekly.

In the past, the presidential candidates have roasted each other and appeared to be in good spirits throughout the night. However, things were different in 2016, the last time both of the presidential candidates attended the event in person.

Trump was booed during his 2016 Al Smith dinner speech for repeatedly attacking Sec. of State Hilary Clinton.

During Clinton’s remarks, the Democratic nominee made some self-deprecating jokes about her stamina and paid speeches, before turning her attention to Trump, where she jabbed him on everything from his temperament to his ties to Russia.

Trump did not laugh or appear to be amused by his opponent’s jokes.

ABC News’ Soo Rin Kim, Fritz Farrow, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim and Will McDuffie contributed to this report.

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Despite celebrating the passing of abortion-related ballot initiatives in seven states, abortion rights advocates warn that a second Donald Trump presidency puts nationwide access to abortion care in danger.

“An already harmful abortion access crisis will likely get worse,” Kelly Baden, the vice president of policy at the Guttmacher Institute, told ABC News.

“The 13 states that currently ban abortion — there are real consequences to that including death. Women are dying from these abortion bans,” Baden said.

Trump may have persuaded voters that there won’t be a federal abortion ban, but experts warn nationwide access could be at risk.

“I don’t think that people know that a federal abortion ban would preempt state constitutional protection. There could also be this sense that, ‘I’m voting yes on this amendment, and that means my state is fine,'” Elisabeth Smith, the director of state policy at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told ABC News.

“A federal abortion ban — if the U.S. Supreme Court allowed it to take effect — would preempt the policy of a state where abortion is legal and accessible,” Smith said. “We don’t yet know which party controls the House [of Representatives], but that is a possibility.”

The regulation of federal agencies could also impact access to abortion care. Medication abortion could come under fire if the Food and Drug Administration — under a Trump presidency — limits access to mifepristone, one of the pills used in the regimen to terminate pregnancy, or rolls back its approval, as anti-abortion groups have tried to do.

The Trump administration could also attempt to misuse the Comstock Act to try to prevent access to medication abortion, Smith warned.

The 150-year-old law is an anti-obscenity law “makes it a crime to mail anything that’s ‘indecent, filthy, or vile’ or ‘intended for producing abortion,'” according to the ACLU.

Ballot initiatives

Missouri became the first state with a near-total abortion ban in effect to approve a pro-abortion rights initiative since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending federal protections for abortion rights.

If the ban is repealed as expected, Missouri could facilitate closer access to abortion care for women in the South. The state borders four states that have ceased nearly all abortion services — Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

But, there is not currently a single brick-and-mortar abortion clinic in Missouri which means that even when the law is repealed, it would still take time for access to care to resume, according to Baden.

“So, we’ll continue to see people having to leave the state for clinician-provided abortion care or to find another way to get care in the meantime,” Baden said.

The legal proceeding to overturn the state’s ban under the new constitutional amendment could also take months to years, according to Baden.

The battlegrounds of Arizona and Nevada were also among 10 states with abortion on the ballot Tuesday. Some strategists hypothesized that this would boost turnout among the majority of voters who support legal abortion, aiding Democratic candidates in the process.

But, exit polling showed that some supporters of abortion still elected Trump in battleground states.

Advocates warn that while ballot initiatives have proved effective, they are not a universal solution.

“They are just one tool in the toolbox. They are clearly not our silver bullet, both, because structurally they can’t be. Not every state even allows for ballot measures like that, they’re expensive and they also are not an immediate solution … a series of litigation has to happen,”

Advocates for abortion-care-related protections said they will continue to work to restore and protect access to abortion care under the incoming administration.

“It is our task to hold this incoming administration to its word that it will not work to further restrict or ban abortion and we will hold them to their insistence that they will invest in caregiving,” Fatima Goss Graves, president of the National Women’s Law Center Action Fund, told reporters during a press conference Wednesday.

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(NEW YORK) — Former President Barack Obama will hit the campaign trail for Vice President Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz starting next Thursday, Oct. 10, through election day, according to a senior campaign official.

The first stop will be in Pennsylvania in the Pittsburgh area before Obama embarks on a campaign blitz across the battleground states in the final 27 days.

Obama held a Los Angeles fundraiser for Harris in September and — along with former first lady Michelle Obama — gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention in August.

Meanwhile, Harris recently enlisted the help of former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney on Thursday at a rally in Wisconsin.

Cheney, the former co-chair of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol, laid out former President Donald Trump’s actions on that day before telling the crowd, “I don’t care if you are a Democrat or a Republican or an independent. That is depravity, and we must never become numb to it. Any person who would do these things can never be trusted with power again.”

Cheney is among a handful of prominent Republicans, including her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, who have pledged to support Harris’ bid, but her endorsement, as one of former President Donald Trump’s most outspoken critics within the party, is one that Harris hopes to leverage in crucial states like Wisconsin, whose margins are expected to be razor thin.

In August, Obama delivered the closing speech on night two of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

“We do not need four more years of bluster and bumbling and chaos,” he told delegates. “We have seen that movie before and we all know that the sequel is usually worse. America is ready for a new chapter. America is ready for a better story. We are ready for a President Kamala Harris.”

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