Rosie O’Donnell Has Strong Words After Trump Threatens To Revoke Her Citizenship: “I’m Everything You Fear. A Loud Woman, A Queer Woman.”
Now living in Ireland, Rosie O’Donnell hit back after Trump called her a “threat to humanity” and suggested she should stay abroad.
Over the weekend, President Trump took to Truth Social to claim he’s “giving serious consideration” to revoking the citizenship of comedian and longtime critic Rosie O’Donnell. His reasoning? That O’Donnell “is not in the best interests of our Great Country,” and should stay in Ireland, where she’s recently relocated.
“She is a threat to humanity and should remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her,” Trump wrote.
Related: Rosie O’Donnell Reveals Why She Left The U.S. For Ireland
In response, O’Donnell fired back with the kind of unflinching honesty that’s long defined her public persona. She posted a photo of Trump alongside convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Instagram, and added a blistering caption:
“I’m everything you fear.
A loud woman,
a queer woman,
a mother who tells the truth,
an American who got out of the country before you set it ablaze.
You are everything that is wrong with America—and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it.”
She ended with a sharp rebuke: “You want to revoke my citizenship? Go ahead and try, King Joffrey with a tangerine spray tan.”
Later, in an interview on Sunday with Miriam on Ireland’s RTÉ Radio 1, O’Donnell elaborated: “I reacted with a little post that I jotted off in five minutes, and that’s been getting a lot of attention online.”
O’Donnell, who was born in New York and is constitutionally protected under the Fourteenth Amendment, isn’t at any actual risk of losing her citizenship. Multiple legal scholars were quick to point out that Trump’s threat holds no water. Amanda Frost, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, quoted the landmark 1967 Supreme Court decision Afroyim v. Rusk to the New York Times, saying, “In our country the people are sovereign and the government cannot sever its relationship to the people by taking away their citizenship.”
Trump doesn’t have the power to do what he’s threatening, though that hasn’t stopped him from making similar comments about other perceived enemies. He’s previously floated deporting Elon Musk and questioned the citizenship status of NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
Related: Zohran Mamdani Announces Protection Plan For LGBTQ+ New Yorkers
Still, the feud with O’Donnell remains one of Trump’s most infamous and enduring. It dates back to 2006, when she criticized him on The View for his handling of a Miss USA controversy. Trump responded with years of public insults, once calling her “disgusting” during an episode of The Apprentice and later declaring in a 2016 debate, “I think everybody would agree that she deserves it and nobody feels sorry for her.”
The photo she shared of Trump and Epstein was particularly pointed, given renewed scrutiny around the so-called “Epstein files.” Trump has publicly defended Attorney General Pam Bondi’s limited release of those documents, even suggesting people should “move on” from Epstein altogether.
“What’s going on with my ‘boys’ and, in some cases, ‘gals?’” Trump posted on Saturday about the fractures in MAGA land. “They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! … Let’s not waste time and energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.”
Among the flood of reactions to O’Donnell’s post was one from Ellen DeGeneres, who reposted it with a simple endorsement: “Good for you @rosie.”
O’Donnell remains rooted in her new life across the Atlantic. She’s seeking Irish citizenship and enjoying time away from what she views as the chaos Trump has helped unleash in the U.S.
“I am very proud to be opposed to every single thing he says and does and represents,” she said on Irish radio. “And I always will be.”
