--- title: Al Smith Dinner: Read Donald Trump's Speech Transcript description: Donald Trump spoke at the Alfred E. Smith charity dinner in New York City on Thursday night. Read the full transcript of his remarks here canonical: https://time.com/4539981/read-the-transcript-donald-trump-speech-al-smith-dinner/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-10-21T08:47:02.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T01:19:46.887Z article:section: Politics og:title: Read Donald Trump's Al Smith Dinner Speech og:description: The white-tie affair is an election-year tradition og:url: https://time.com/4539981/read-the-transcript-donald-trump-speech-al-smith-dinner/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0add9ae35c5ec852/6988aaff97cdff1cf66ae442/gettyimages-615942912.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Donald Trump And Hillary Clinton Attend Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Read Donald Trump's Al Smith Dinner Speech twitter:description: The white-tie affair is an election-year tradition twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0add9ae35c5ec852/6988aaff97cdff1cf66ae442/gettyimages-615942912.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Read the Transcript of Donald Trump's Speech at the Al Smith Dinner by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Oct 21, 2016 8:47 AM UTC  Donald Trump speaks at the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner at the Waldorf Astoria, Oct. 20, 2016 in New York. Donald Trump speaks at the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner at the Waldorf Astoria, Oct. 20, 2016 in New York.Spencer Platt/Getty Images by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Oct 21, 2016 8:47 AM UTC Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump spoke Thursday night at the 71st Al Smith dinner in New York City. Read the full transcript of his remarks below. --- > “” --- ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4539981/read-the-transcript-donald-trump-speech-al-smith-dinner/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4539981/read-the-transcript-donald-trump-speech-al-smith-dinner/"},"headline":"Read the Transcript of Donald Trump's Speech at the Al Smith Dinner","datePublished":"2016-10-21T08:47:02.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T01:19:46.887Z","description":"The white-tie affair is an election-year tradition","url":"https://time.com/4539981/read-the-transcript-donald-trump-speech-al-smith-dinner/","keywords":["Donald Trump","2016 Election topic","transcripts"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0add9ae35c5ec852/6988aaff97cdff1cf66ae442/gettyimages-615942912.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0add9ae35c5ec852/6988aaff97cdff1cf66ae442/gettyimages-615942912.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Donald Trump And Hillary Clinton Attend Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner","caption":"Donald Trump And Hillary Clinton Attend Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner","creditText":"Spencer Platt/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4539981/read-the-transcript-donald-trump-speech-al-smith-dinner/","name":"Read the Transcript of Donald Trump's Speech at the Al Smith Dinner"}}]}] ```