Jimmy Fallon used his September 14 Tonight Show monologue to mock President Trump’s claim that the country only needs a “strong and smart (High IQ!) president” to handle artificial intelligence, the Yahoo Entertainment recap reports.
According to Yahoo, Fallon joked that he didn’t think Trump could even beat Wordle while imagining the president challenging ChatGPT to a cognitive test during the monologue.
Yahoo’s recap quotes Fallon riffing on a Truth Social post in which Trump wrote, “The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT,” a post mirrored in reporting by NBC and PBS about the president rejecting new AI guardrails.
The Yahoo story also places the joke in the wider debate over AI safety, noting warnings from a former Anthropic researcher and linking to an essay by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei calling for slowing AI capabilities, which Fallon invoked as part of his monologue’s setup.
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. ET on NBC, and Yahoo embeds the show’s clip and YouTube link of the monologue in its coverage.
Fallon has referenced Trump on his program before; Yahoo’s search index also lists past segments where the host quipped about the president in sports and cultural sketches, giving context to Friday’s monologue.
Sources
- Yahoo Entertainment — primary recap of Fallon’s September 14 monologue, quotes and context about AI and Amodei’s essay.
- Truth Social — Trump’s post saying the U.S. has a “STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT.”
- NBC News / PBS — reporting that Trump rejected calls for AI guardrails and restated the Truth Social quote.
