Donald Trump’s claim that he’s “done more for Black Americans” than “any president in U.S. history” with the “possible” exception of Abraham Lincoln prompted Jimmy Fallon to look into the similarities between our current POTUS and No. 16 on Thursday’s “Tonight Show: At Home Edition.”
What Fallon found was a shocking resemblance in the two commander-in-chiefs word choices while reciting Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address. Well, a very, very fake, Trumpified version of the speech that Lincoln delivered in 1863 during the Civil War, that is.
“Four score and seven years ago, our fathers — terrific people, fantastic fathers — brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty — beautiful thing, liberty — and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, the most equal, couldn’t be more equal,” Fallon said, reading the heavily altered speech in his Trump voice. “We are met on the great battlefield — a great classy field, everyone says it’s really classy — and we’re going to dedicate it to those who gave their lives. But, in a larger sense, we’re going to dedicate it to me. We’ll put up a sign, a big beautiful sign that says ‘Lincoln Field’ in huge gold letters, with a golf course and a pro club and cabana bar. Now we are engaged in a great civil war — and it’s very unfair how I’ve been treated during this war.”
He continued: “The newspapers have not treated Lincoln nicely. They’ve said nasty things. Very nasty. You don’t see them saying those things about Sleepy General Sherman, or Creepy Custer. Sad! We here highly resolve that this nation, under God — great guy by the way, good friend of mine — shall have a new birth of freedom… especially when it comes to the 2nd Amendment. Everyone has the freedom to fire a rifle, place a new bullet from a pouch in the barrel, bite off the end of a gun powder pouch, take out a long stick, shove all of that down into the barrel, and fire again. And if people want to fire as many as one bullet every three minutes, no government should be able to stop them. Not even a Lincoln government. And that government of Lincoln, by Lincoln, for Lincoln, shall not perish from the earth.”
Fallon/Lincoln/Trump ended the speech: “OK, if you need me, I’ll be in my bunker. Be best.”
Watch the clip via the video above. The Gettysburg Address bit starts around the 3:14 mark. For those of you wondering, here is the actual Gettysburg Address, courtesy of the Smithsonian.