Jimmy Fallon took aim at Donald Trump after the president suggested AI needed one thing above all. According to Trump, America already had the “strong and smart (High IQ!) president” needed to keep artificial intelligence in check.
The late-night host turned that claim into a punchline during his September 14 Tonight Show monologue. Fallon questioned whether Trump could outsmart AI, then lowered the bar considerably with a joke about Wordle.
Jimmy Fallon mocks Donald Trump’s claim that AI needs a ‘strong and smart’ president with a cutting Wordle joke
Fallon responded to Trump’s Truth Social post with plenty of sarcasm. “Well, I feel better,” the comedian joked before imagining Trump challenging ChatGPT to a cognitive test. He then went straight for the president’s intelligence claim. “We’re relying on Trump to beat AI?! I don’t think Trump can beat Wordle,” he said.
The joke took another turn when Fallon imagined Trump changing artificial intelligence into “American intelligence.” He also riffed on Trump supposedly confusing AI with American Idol. In Fallon’s imagined Trump voice, the president had already spoken with Ryan Seacrest. “I’ve spoken with Ryan Seacrest and we’re perfectly safe,” he quipped.
Fallon also mocked Trump’s apparent enthusiasm for AI-generated images. “For some reason, Trump’s not eager to stop something that let’s him make photos of himself as Jesus riding a bald eagle,” he said. The monologue arrived during a wider fight over AI guardrails. Former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon recently warned that the technology “could kill us all by the end of the decade” after leaving the company.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei then addressed those fears in a lengthy essay. “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models,” Amodei wrote. Sam Altman, Demis Hassabis, and Elon Musk supported Amodei’s concerns. Trump, however, rejected the idea that AI needed additional restrictions.
Trump wrote on Truth Social that “The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT.” He also claimed his administration had stopped AI companies from potentially harmful actions. Trump warned critics while insisting America remained ahead of China in artificial intelligence.
Fallon responded by inventing a new military solution. He joked that Trump planned to fight “very negative forces” with a branch called “The Very Negative Force Force.”
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. ET on NBC.
