Culture

Hillary Clinton Throws A Few Softballs To Jimmy Fallon Following His Disastrous Trump Interview

Following Jimmy “Have you seen my show?” Fallon’s repeatedly lampooned interview with Donald Trump, the Tonight Show host invited Hillary Clinton onto Monday’s program. Actually, Fallon recorded his interview with the Democratic nominee last week, but it finally aired Monday night. And just in time, as everyone from his own musical guests to Samantha Bee were giving the Saturday Night Live alum plenty of well-deserved sh*t for the public relations disaster.

Then again, considering Fallon’s opening gag (donning a surgical mask before saying a proper hello), it’s no wonder Clinton went straight for her own Tonight Show writers-prepared gift bag. Aside from a few unsurprising jabs at her Republican rival, the bag also included one well-deserved bit of shade for Fallon:

CLINTON: You know what? He left these for you: softballs.

FALLON: No, that was my gift to him.

CLINTON: Yeah, you gave him…

FALLON: Well, I’ll give them to you later in the interview.

Though slight, Fallon’s self-awareness regarding touslegate (TMZ defense notwithstanding) was a nice change of pace following a long weekend rife with a more than usual amount of hate for the Tonight Show host. Plus the moment gave Clinton enough footing to take a few jokes about her recent health scare and all the secrecy surrounding her pneumonia diagnosis.

“It was crazy for me, because I’m used to just getting up and powering through it, and that’s what I thought I could do,” she admitted. “It turns out I couldn’t, so I took a few days off and actually, I think it was good. I got a chance to reflect on this crazy campaign that we’re involved in and decided that I’m going to talk about what I think needs to happen to help people, and try to stay away from all the negative insult stuff that goes back and forth.”

Despite declaring a need to “stay away from all the negative insult stuff,” Clinton couldn’t resist the opportunity to criticize Trump — be it the aforementioned gift bag, or Trump’s decision to revisit “birtherism.” She also talked a great deal about being a woman on the campaign trail, a topic much-discussed but never treated with the detail and respect it requires.

(Via Matt Wilstein on Twitter and The Daily Beast)