It’s always interesting when late-night hosts go on each other’s shows, and that was especially true Seth Meyers returned to The Tonight Show .
In the wide-ranging chat with Jimmy Fallon, Meyers—who previously defended Fallon’s much-maligned hair-ruffling interview with Donald Trump last year—wanted people to stop blaming Fallon for why Trump won. It’s because he knows who they should really be mad at.
“I was insulted by the reaction because I know after that happened you took some heat and some people said you are the reason he won,” Meyers said. “And I’m so insulted by that because I am the reason he won.”
It’s not something Meyers is proud of—since it’s not the outcome he wanted for the election—but Trump’s win is historic, and he simply wants credit for being the catalyst. If you recall, Meyers and Barack Obama mercilessly insulted Trump at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner. (While that narrative has come up during the 2016 election, it’s disputed whether it was actually a motivating factor in Trump’s run.)
“I made fun of him in 2011,” Meyers explained. “That’s the night he decided to run. I kicked the hornet’s nest, you just rubbed the hornet’s head.”
While the sentiment from Meyers, who has extensively covered politics on Late Night, is a nice one, it probably won’t convince anyone who has already written Fallon off. Accusations of Fallon normalizing Trump have dogged him for months since that interview—including from fellow late-night host Samantha Bee—and will probably continue anytime Fallon does a major event—if his gig hosting the Golden Globes is any indication.
