After another acrimonious debate this week, the presidential candidates appeared together Thursday night (October 20) at the annual Al Smith dinner hosted by Cardinal Timothy Dolan of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York. The dinner raises money for children’s charities. It is organized, the church says, in a spirit of collegiality and good humor. Traditionally, the candidates trade jokes. This year, the humor was often cutting:

Donald Trump: “This is the first time ever that Hillary is sitting down and speaking to major corporate leaders and not getting paid for it.”

Hillary Clinton: “Getting through these three debates with Donald has to count as a miracle.”

The jokes sometimes veered into personal digs. Trump was booed several times for some of his remarks.

Wednesday night’s debate (October 19) also featured a lot of sparring. Trump raised eyebrows when he indicated he may not accept the election results on November 8. He later said he’d accept the results if he wins. The two candidates disagreed strongly over abortion. Trump repeated his intention to restrict abortion rights:

Donald Trump: “That’ll happen automatically in my opinion because I am putting pro-life judges on the Court.”

Hillary Clinton: “I do not think the US government should be stepping in.”

Abortion is a key issue for the two largest faith-based constituencies. The majority of evangelicals do not believe abortion should be legal in most cases, while Catholics are about evenly split.