Jimmy Fallon is using his own soapbox to clap back at President Trump.
A day after Trump sent out a tweet calling on Fallon to “be a man,” Fallon focused his Monday night monologue on The Tonight Show on the commander-in-chief.
“Before we begin,” he told the audience at the start of the show, “I just want to give a shout out to our show’s number one fan: the president of the United States!”
“As you may have heard, last night, the president of the United States went after me on Twitter,” he continued. “So Melania, if you’re watching, I don’t think your anti-bullying campaign is working.”
Fallon went on, explaining that while he initially planned to tweet back, he then realized that he has “more important things to do.” But then he realized that Trump should also have more important things to do, telling the audience, “He’s the president! What are you doing? You’re the president! Why are you tweeting at me?”
Poking fun at the notion of Trump getting into a Twitter war with him, Fallon said, “The president went after me on Twitter. It’s pretty much the only thing I have in common with NFL players.”
Even after finishing his monologue, Fallon had a couple more points of clarification for his audience. Referring to the part of Trump’s tweet where he claimed that Fallon called him to discuss the “monster ratings” of the show they did together, Fallon said, “First of all, I’ve never called this human in my life.”
“I don’t have his number, I don’t want his number,” Fallon continued. “And ‘monster ratings’? I’ve never said ‘monster ratings.’ I don’t know what he’s talking about.”
And if you thought it was just Fallon who doubled down on the feud Monday, you’d be wrong. At a rally in Columbia, S.C., Trump claimed once again that Fallon had called him, explaining, “He’s lost. He looks like a lost soul. But you know what, he’s a nice guy.”
“I agreed to do his show and I guess because I was running at that time, I think, he got tremendous ratings. He should be thankful. He shouldn’t be upset or angry,” Trump continued. “He’s all apologizing because he humanized me? And he really hurt himself.”