REBUTTAL

Jimmy Fallon Fires Back at Trump: Don’t Think Melania’s ‘Anti-Bullying Campaign Is Working’

The typically apolitical ‘Tonight Show’ host decided he couldn’t ignore the presidential gift he received on Twitter over the weekend.

When Donald Trump tweeted about the “lowest rated Oscars in HISTORY” earlier this year, the award show’s host Jimmy Kimmel spent much of his monologue going after the “narcissistic” president. “Trump always has a problem with the Academy Awards—which is surprising, because I really think he would love the Best Picture winner The Shape of Water,” Kimmel joked. “If you haven’t seen it, it’s about a monster who has sex with a woman who can’t talk about it. Basically, it’s like his life story.”

When Trump called Stephen Colbert a “no-talent guy” in an interview with Time magazine, the Late Show host gleefully celebrated the shout-out. “Don’t you know I’ve been trying for a year to get you to say my name, and you were very restrained—admirably restrained—but now you did it,” he said, adding in a whisper, “I won.”

Now, Trump has tweeted about Jimmy Fallon.

The president was apparently spending his Sunday evening watching Fox News when host Greg Gutfeld began to whine about how, in a recent interview, The Tonight Show host opened up about his regrets following a 2016 sit-down with the then-candidate. “I made a mistake,” Fallon admitted about the moment in which he playfully ruffled Trump’s hair. “I’m sorry if I made anyone mad. And, looking back, I would do it differently.”

In response, Trump implored him to “be a man.”

So how did Fallon address this very presidential tweet on The Tonight Show Monday night?

“Before we begin, I just wanna give a shout out to our show’s number one fan: the president of the United States!” Fallon began. “As you may have heard, last night, the president of the United States went after me on Twitter. So Melania, if you’re watching, I don’t think your anti-bullying campaign is working.”

“When I saw that Trump insulted me on Twitter, I was gonna tweet back immediately, but I thought, ‘I have more important things to do,’” the host continued. “Then I thought, “Wait—shouldn’t he have more important things to do?’”

Putting the tweet up on the screen, Fallon marveled, “That’s real. It’s crazy. The president went after me on Twitter. It’s pretty much the only thing I have in common with NFL players.”

Well, in response, I made a donation in Trump’s name to the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, or “RAICES.”

Ahead of Monday’s show, the host announced over the weekend that in “honor” of the president’s tweet he had decided to make a donation to RAICES—an organization working to reunite immigrant families separated at the border—in Trump’s name. “When Trump heard, he was like, ‘I love RAICES—they’re my favorite peanut butter cup,’” Fallon joked. “There’s no wrong way to eat a RAICES.”

Fallon has continued to insist that he is just not interested in being a political comedian in the vein of his direct competitors Kimmel and especially Colbert, who has overtaken him in the nightly ratings during the Trump presidency. His showrunner, Katie Hockmeyer, recently told The Daily Beast that Fallon is “trying to stay true to who he is and not try to be someone else because maybe that’s where the tide has turned for the moment.”

But he has also made exceptions in the past, and responding directly to a tweet from the president was apparently an opportunity too good to pass up.

Trump, meanwhile, continued going after Fallon, who he referred to as a “lost soul” during a particularly unhinged and rambling rally speech in South Carolina Monday night. Instead of apologizing for “humanizing” him, the president said Fallon should be “thankful” for the ratings he got that night in September on 2016. He failed to mention that those ratings have been steadily declining ever since.

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Matt WilsteinSenior Editor

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