Jimmy Fallon found Ivanka Trump’s efforts to get out of testifying in the civil fraud trial against her father, former President Donald Trump, this week were particularly admirable — and hilarious.
Joking in Friday night’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” monologue, the host said, “Ivanka did everything she could to get out of testifying. She even tried the old, ‘Do you know who my dad is?’ And the judge was like, ‘Yeah, that’s why you’re here.’”
Fallon added, putting on his Trump impression while wiping tears from his eyes: “Meanwhile, her dad was like, ‘My daughter’s trying to get out of court? I’ve never been more proud.’”
Ivanka Trump tried this week to postpone her call to testify in the civil fraud trial against her father, filing an appeal through her attorney arguing that she’d suffer “undue hardship” if she were forced to appear in court during a school week.
“Ms. Trump, who resides in Florida with her three minor children, will suffer undue hardship if a stay is denied and she is required to testify at trial in New York in the middle of a school week, in a case she has already been dismissed from, before her appeal is heard,” her attorney argued.
Trump requested her testimony, as ordered by New York Judge Arthur Engoron, be delayed — along with the entirety of the fraud trial against her father, her two brothers Don Jr. and Eric and the Trump Organization — until her appeal could be heard by the New York appellate court. Her motion to pause the proceedings was denied Thursday.
The testimony of Ivanka’s brother, Donald Trump Jr., also gave Fallon plenty of material to riff on Friday, particularly the eldest son’s reported request to the court’s sketch artist to “make me look sexy.”
Fallon and the “Tonight Show” team were so inspired by the request that they then went back to previous courtroom sketches of famous faces and pondered what they may have requested at the time.
Tom Brady, for instance, requested to “look like a jack-o-lantern that was left out until Thanksgiving”; Elton John asked “to look like John Denver playing a lawyer in an 80s miniseries”; Martha Stewart wanted “to look like Tan Mom watching a Sarah McLaughlin sad dog commercial”; Jude Law posed as “a leprechaun who saves a local bar in a Hallmark movie”; and for the bit’s big finale, Donald Trump “asked to look like the Orange Grinch.”
“I think they nailed it,” Fallon said of that last one.
Watch the full Friday night monologue from “The Tonight Show” in the video above.