Hillary Clinton Holds Her Own Against Trump On The Tonight Show

Hillary Clinton sure picked the right time to make her debut appearance on The Tonight Show: the same evening as the second circus-act debate in the GOP presidential nomination process. The former secretary of state loosened up a little on Fallon's couch — it must be nice to chat with an anchor who's not grilling you on the email scandal that the rest of the media seem to be obsessed with. Fallon busted out the bronzer and toupee again to play The Donald, interviewing Clinton over the phone. (Also, can Fallon's Trump impression please become a permanent fixture of the show?) Their conversation, below, was what you'd expect from one between a goofy talk show host and a politician making a bid for the presidency: Fallon's spot-on Trumpisms brought the laughs in alternation with Hillary's more subdued, scripted soundbites. But, after an evening chock-full of GOP mudslinging — at members of their own party as well as Clinton — the former first lady bunted back with a couple of half-decent zingers. She joked that should a Republican win the White House, Trump would change the name of it to "The Trump House," or "You could have Dr. Carson doing surgery in the basement." Oh yeah, she went there. After the phone call skit, Fallon and Clinton sat down and talked some more, brushing on topics including whether Clinton feels tough enough for the job (she thinks so), what it's like to watch the relentlessly entertaining Trump coverage ("I'm having a good time watching it!") to that pesky email server issue. Fallon argued the headline for that story should be "Grandma Knows How To Use Email." Clinton veered into automated, overly general campaign-spiel territory a couple of times, as politicians tend to do, throwing out phrases like, "You want to help people...but there are problems in the world." But the always genial Fallon did a good job of getting Clinton to let her hair down a little bit — no, really, he actually pulled her hair. "It's real! And it smells great!" he assured us. We'll keep an eye out for that breaking news story later today. But remember, you saw it here first!