the mood for dinner that s taken on the air of a roast. i was actually hoping the president would bring joe biden along this evening because he ll laugh at anything. of course, the economy s on everybody s minds. unemployment rate is at its lowest level since i took office. i don t have a joke here. i just thought it d be useful to remind everybody that the unemployment rate is the lowest it s been since i took office. tonight s dinner, presided over by cardinal timothy dolan, archbishop of new york, seated between hillary and trump. that s the way these things always work. when we come back, we ll preview what promises to be quite a night.
us being like we don t actually want to put each other in jail, for instance. what s your feeling? but unfortunately, we do he does. set against the backdrop of that. so surreal in so many ways. these two candidates are so inappropriate for this setting. here you have this thrice-married libertine who brags about his affairs and talks about grabbing women by their private parts, then she s there after having made a really strong statement on abortion last night. you remember that her husband was not invited to this dinner. he didn t come. mondale had debate prep, because he was afraid of the abortion politics. and kerry didn t go. jimmy carter got booed in 1980. that s a great point. i hadn t even thought of that. she gave probably the most comprehensive full-throated defense of abortion rights you ever heard. on a presidential stage. sitting next to timothy dolan, but he can t feel much better about the guy on the
he s a guy that has a back bone of steel. it s hard to imagine sitting between those two and not addressing the elephant in the room. not addressing the issues of character. not addressing the issues is of values. i ll be interested to know how he does it. he may do it with a smile but cardinal dolan is a tough guy. that is all in for this evening. the rachel maddow show starts right now. live coverage indeed. thank you, my friends. thanks to you at home for sticking with us for the next hour. we ll be live with the al smith dinner in just a second for the remarks by donald trump and hillary clinton or hillary clinton and donald trump. we don t even know which one goes first. first woman nominated by a major party for president, hillary clinton. 2016, democratic party. first african-american nominated by a major party for president, barack obama, 2008, democratic party. first jewish person nominated by a major part for vice president,
right. like he won a major party s nomination. what are you going to do, say, no debates or he s not invited? the institutions exist for the slot of the person who wins the major party. and he got the slot. he got the slot. as someone who i m happy that she s there. i m happy that the church has opened up that little bit. so if i say that, she can sit there even though she s pro choice, then i can t really say he shouldn t have been invited. yeah, that s right. but that s exactly the line that we re all dealing with, charlie, i think, in this campaign. to me it s clear that there s something distinct, novel and unique about what trump represents but that s sort of in the eye of the beholder. that s the mistake that the republicans made. i think it s the mistake the media has made. it s a mistake the establishment has made, which is try to wishful thinking to make donald trump normal. i m really fascinated to see what cardinal dolan does. he s a decent human being but
the institutions exist for the slot of the person who wins the major party. and he got the slot. he got the slot. as someone who i m happy that she s there. i m happy that the church has opened up that little bit. so if i say that, she can sit there even though she s pro choice, then i can t really say he shouldn t have been invited. yeah, that s right. but that s exactly the line that we re all dealing with, charlie, i think, in this campaign. to me it s clear that there s something distinct, novel and unique about what trump represents but that s sort of in the eye of the beholder. that s the mistake that the republicans made. i think it s the mistake the media has made. it s a mistake the establishment has made, which is try to wishful thinking to make donald trump normal. i m really fascinated to see what cardinal dolan does. he s a decent human being but he s a guy that has a back bone