When it comes to the late night hosts making jabs at President Donald Trump, we’re used to seeing Jimmy Kimmel and Stephan Colbert at the top of the list. Seth Meyers and Jon Stewart are also no strangers, but one late night show host tends to avoid them. Jimmy Fallon decided he had to speak out on a recent episode of The Tonight Show.
Fallon has opted to avoid the discussions of Donald Trump on his late night show. It’s not all that clear why: whether it’s just a personal choice to keep politics out of it, or if it’s due to concerns about the FCC. Whatever it is, Fallon usually sticks to entertainment, but that wasn’t the case on Thursday, Jan. 8.
Jimmy Fallon calls Donald Trump a dictator on The Tonight Show
During the opening monologue of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Thursday, Jan. 8, the host decided to comment on the ongoing situation in Venezuela. Other hosts were focused on ICE and the shooting that happened in Minneapolis, as they’d focused on Venezuela earlier in the week. However, Fallon brought it up now.
The decision came off the back of Trump’s interview with The New York Times, which lasted two hours about the situation in Venezuela, and Fallon couldn’t help but call the entire thing a “little dictator wife swap.”
Yes, he did refer to Trump as a dictator in that line of commenting. He also almost did an impression, but decided to hold back, and he made jokes about how Trump tends to ramble when he answers questions and never really actually answers the question.
After that, there was a comment about running the country, which Trump says America will do for years. However, with nobody physically there at the moment, Fallon questioned whether it would be over Zoom.
Jimmy Fallon has chosen to avoid the politics in the past
This was a rare moment for The Tonight Show host. While he has commented on personality quirks and done the odd impersonation, he doesn’t usually comment on the state of the Administration. He avoids topics like the most recent comments on ICE, previously saying the show has “never really been political.”
This hasn’t stopped Trump from calling for Fallon’s firing now and then. However, he has stayed out of the firing line more often than his fellow late-night hosts. Kimmel tends to get the most comments, with Meyers and Colbert not far behind him.
It’s worth noting that while there were a couple of giggles, there weren’t many claps about Fallon focusing on Venezuela. It’s likely that the audience isn’t used to that, so may not have really known how to react, or that more Trump supporters are there than other late night shows since Fallon avoids so much.
Will we see more of this? Only time will tell.
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon airs on weeknights at 11:35/10:35c on NBC and streams the following day on Peacock.