Jimmy Fallon Faces Social Media Backlash After Donald Trump Appearance

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NEW YORK (AP) — Some “Tonight Show” viewers weren’t laughing after GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump paid Jimmy Fallon a visit Thursday, and encountered nothing hairier from the NBC host than a head rub.

Noting that “the next time I see you, you could be the President of the United States,” Fallon proposed they do something “that’s just not presidential, really, something that we could do now that we’re both just civilians.”

“I’m not liking the sound of this,” Trump said.

“Can I mess your hair up?” Fallon asked, quickly adding, “I’ll be gentle.”

Fallon was, both with mussing up Trump’s legendary yellow ‘do and with the interview that accompanied it.

Afterward, tweets flew.

“In his defense, Jimmy Fallon just pulled in a 35 share among white supremacists 18-49,” cracked one, while another declared, “Humanizing a xenophobe is not okay.”

Yet another tweet excused Fallon for not drilling his subject as a journalist might, but faulted him “for his willingness to serve as hell’s court jester.”

For some observers, Trump’s devil-may-care guest shot may have seemed particularly jarring on Friday as he commanded blanket TV coverage for his revised verdict, after long denying it, that President Barack Obama was indeed born in the United States.

But years before the current polarizing presidential race, Fallon built his brand as a lovable, powder-puff-wielding host, no matter who his guest, politician or otherwise. No one mistakes Fallon for his slyly subversive CBS counterpart, Stephen Colbert, or Colbert’s caustic predecessor, David Letterman. Fallon’s nice-guy style has helped make him the late-night ratings leader.

Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, a scheduled guest for Monday’s “Tonight Show,” was surely expecting the same kid-gloves treatment accorded to Trump.

Even so, The Huffington Post called Fallon’s handling of Trump “a softball interview even by softball standards.”

A GQ magazine critic called it “embarrassing” and “fawning” — “like watching a dictator be ‘fun’ on state-run TV.”

On Friday, NBC declined to comment on Trump’s “Tonight Show” appearance.

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EDITOR’S NOTE — Frazier Moore is a national television columnist for The Associated Press. He can be reached at fmoore@ap.org and at http://www.twitter.com/tvfrazier. Past stories are available at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/frazier-moore

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Online:

http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight-show

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Notable Replies

  1. Drumpf and Fallon: Can you spot the bigger tool?

    (Yeah, it’s a trick question. They are both equally yuge tools.)

    On a somewhat related note: Jay Leno has said that he wants someone to smack Drumpf in the face. I do too. But I don’t want the thrashing to be limited to Herr Coir Coif. The Chin deserves it as well for all of his past brown-nosing of the Barnum Bigot.

  2. Is this really a thing? What do you expect from Fallon? He’s the class clown with a national TV show, not Jon Stewart.

  3. It*s called petting , after which Donny will sniff Jimmys butt .

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