There may not be much to laugh about when it comes to the Silicon Valley Bank crash last week, but “The Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon spun up some solid quips on the matter Monday night by poking fun at President Biden, former president Donald Trump and more.
“A lot of people are talking about this: Over the weekend, the U.S. economy was rocked after Silicon Valley Bank, becoming the second largest bank failure in U.S. history,” Fallon said at the top of his monologue. “It’s never good when people who are watching CNBC are shrieking louder than the people watching ‘Scream 6.’”
If you haven’t been following SVB’s collapse, here’s a quick rundown: On Wednesday, the bank told investors it needed to raise just over $2 billion to offset $1.8 billion in losses, leading to a number of high-profile venture capital clients pulling their assets from the bank, totaling a staggering $42 billion. As a result SVB was left with a negative cash balance of $958 million. So, on Friday morning, regulators shut the bank down and seized its assets.
“Silicon Valley Bank knew they were in trouble when they saw themselves in the Oscars in memoriam,” Fallon said of the fallout. “On the bright side, it was refreshing to hear about a crash that had nothing to do with the self-driving Tesla, don’t you think?”
Biden has since come out to insist to the American public that the banking system is safe, which the “Tonight Show” host found reassuring.
“In response to the crash today, President Biden delivered a speech and assured Americans they can have confidence that the banking system is safe,” Fallon said. “Hearing from Biden actually did make me feel better because you know if it were really bad he’d be like, ‘Kamala, you take this one.’”
Fallon then ribbed the president’s age: “Biden tried to put everyone at ease. He said, ‘Don’t worry, I got through the first Great Depression, I’ll get through this one.’”
The SVB portion of his monologue wrapped with a Trump impression:
“Meanwhile in response, Trump said, ‘It’s times like these where we need a president with experience of multiple bankruptcies,” Fallon said.
Watch the full “Tonight Show” monologue in the video above.
