SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Former President Trump spoke at the Al Smith Dinner in New York City Thursday night, a dinner to raise money for Catholic charities and often a regular stop every election cycle for political candidates.
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DONALD TRUMP: Tradition holds that I'm supposed to tell a few self-deprecating jokes this evening, so here it goes. Nope, I've got nothing. I got nothing.
SIMON: Well, he did have one line about how happy he was to appear in New York without a subpoena. NPR senior editor and correspondent Ron Elving joins us now. Ron, thanks for being with us.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Scott.
SIMON: Maybe not many self-deprecating jokes, but Donald Trump made several personal and, in a couple of instances, salacious japes - not sure they can be called jokes - in front of the cardinal and aimed at his political opponents. Did his speech go - I have to say - beyond the bounds of decency? And what does that say about political discourse these days?
ELVING: It says we're still very much in the age of Trump. He's setting the tone, once again, just as he's been doing for nearly a decade. Here's one of his lines from this week's Al Smith.
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TRUMP: Right now, we have someone in the White House who can barely talk, barely put together two coherent sentences, who seems to have mental faculties of a child, it's said, is a person that has nothing going, no intelligence whatsoever, but enough about Kamala Harris.
ELVING: So that was one of the lines that people can judge for themselves, whether it's out of bounds or good, clean fun, but what some people consider boorish is what others call keeping it real or telling it like it is. And it's been a big part of Trump's impact on our political discourse. So Harris skipped the event. She sent a video instead, and she used that to take a couple of jabs at Trump, saying that his lies about the election violated the bearing false witness clause of the Ten Commandments. Trump said that was disrespectful. But her campaign may have decided, overall, there was little upside in seeing her there.
SIMON: Also, this week, Donald Trump danced for half an hour during a town hall. He refused to answer some questions at an appearance of the Chicago Economic Club, backed out of a CNBC interview. Is this causing any concerns among his supporters about his fitness for high office?
ELVING: It's probably more disturbing to Harris voters than Trump voters, who are more or less accustomed to taking these things in stride, and lately, it extends to these last-minute cancellations. You mentioned CNBC. He also stiffed CBS' "60 Minutes." One of his campaign staffers has been quoted saying that he's cutting back on his schedule because he's exhausted, and at times, at least, he has seemed so. NBC posted a video last night that appears to show Trump nodding off - eyes closed, head bobbing - at one of his own campaign events.
On the other hand, you have the more aggressive media strategy, as we saw this week at the end of a 20-minute segment on "Fox & Friends," the morning show. He announced he was going that day to meet with Rupert, meaning Rupert Murdoch, the man behind all things Fox. He already - we already knew that Trump has been upset with the number of Harris surrogates and ads that have appeared on Fox, and Trump said he was going to ask Rupert, as he called him, to cut these off and cut off negative ads for the rest of the campaign, adding, then I think we'll have the victory.
SIMON: Meanwhile, Kamala Harris was on Fox News - probably not what most pollsters would call her demographic. What did you see in her appearance?
ELVING: Here again, it depends on which camp you ask. Trump folks tended to say she had been exposed and evasive. Harris folks were proud of how she based the slings and arrows and interruptions and held her ground on Fox. They were also pleased just with the contrast, Harris going on Fox while Trump was canceling interviews and complaining about fact-checkers and tough questions.
SIMON: NPR's Ron Elving, thanks so much for being with us.
ELVING: Thank you, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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