Fox News denies employee wrote Trump’s jokes at Al Smith dinner

Fox News is disputing a claim made by former President Trump that “people from Fox” helped write jokes he delivered at a Catholic charity banquet this week.

“Your material was real funny, who wrote it,” “Fox & Friends” host Steve Doocy asked Trump during the former president’s in-studio visit to the program Friday.

“I had a lot of people helping,” Trump responded about his jokes at the Al Smith dinner. “A lot of people, a couple people from Fox — actually, I shouldn’t say that — but they wrote some jokes. For the most part, I didn’t like any of them.”

The network said Friday afternoon in a statement to The Hill it had “confirmed that no employee or freelancers wrote the jokes.”

A source familiar with the situation told The Hill that Trump did receive some jokes from comedian Nick Di Paolo, who is a vendor and contributes jokes for the network’s late-night comedy program “Gutfeld!”

Trump used his appearance at the Al Smith dinner, which is traditionally attended by both presidential nominees, to attack Democrats and Vice President Harris, who did not attend and instead appeared via a video.

“Tradition holds that I’m supposed to tell a few self-deprecating jokes this evening,” Trump said at one point during his remarks. “So here it goes — nope. I’ve got nothing. I’ve got nothing. There’s nothing to say.”