The decades-long feud between Donald Trump and Rosie O'Donnell escalated once again this weekend, after the POTUS publicly declared he is giving “serious consideration” to revoking the comedian’s US citizenship — an unprecedented threat that drew immediate backlash and a blistering response from O’Donnell.
Posting to Truth Social on Saturday, Trump called O'Donnell a “Threat to Humanity” and suggested she should stay in Ireland, where she has lived since January.
“Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship,” Trump wrote. “She is a Threat to Humanity, and should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”
Trump’s threat — legally impossible, given that US citizens cannot be stripped of their citizenship by presidential order — follows O’Donnell’s move to the Dublin suburb of Howth with her 12-year-old child, who is non-binary and autistic. She has stated the decision to leave came after Trump’s 2024 election victory over Kamala Harris, and her move coincided with Trump's second inauguration.
O'Donnell: “You Lie, You Steal, You Degrade”
O’Donnell wasted no time firing back in a string of social media posts, some featuring images of Trump with Jeffrey Epstein. “Hey Donald – you’re rattled again?” she wrote. “18 years later and I still live rent-free in that collapsing brain of yours.”
Calling him a “dangerous old soulless man,” O'Donnell unleashed a direct rebuke: “You call me a threat to humanity – but 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 b4 u set it ablaze.”
“You crave loyalty – I teach my children to question power,” she continued. “You sell fear on golf courses – I make art about surviving trauma. You lie, you steal, you degrade – I nurture, I create, I persist. You are everything that is wrong with America… I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
A Feud That Won’t Die
Trump and O’Donnell’s public animosity dates back to 2006, when O’Donnell criticized Trump’s handling of a Miss USA controversy during her time on The View, accusing him of being a “snake-oil salesman” and mocking his personal life.
Trump quickly retaliated. In an interview with The Insider, he called her “disgusting both inside and out,” saying, “You take a look at her, she’s a slob. She talks like a truck driver.”
The feud hit the national stage during the first GOP primary debate in 2015. When Fox host Megyn Kelly asked Trump about his use of terms like “fat pigs” and “slobs” to describe women, he famously replied, “Only Rosie O’Donnell.”
O'Donnell later called Trump's harassment “the most bullying I ever experienced in my life, including as a child.” The abuse, she said, was public, sustained, and “sanctioned societally.”
“A Way to Take Care of Myself and My Child”
Speaking to Chris Cuomo in June, O’Donnell said her move to Ireland was partly about protecting her mental health and ensuring a safer environment for her child under Trump’s second presidency.
“Coming to Ireland was totally a way to take care of myself and my non-binary autistic child, who’s going to need services and help and counseling and all the things that he’s threatening to cut in his horrible plan of the big, beautiful bill,” she said on The Chris Cuomo Project podcast.
In a March interview with CNN, O’Donnell described life under Trump as “heartbreaking and personally very very sad to watch,” adding, “It’s bad as they promised and even a little bit worse.”
She also revealed that she and her child are in the process of applying for Irish citizenship.
Trump’s Fixation Continues
Trump, now in his second term, continues to target O’Donnell with venom that shows no sign of abating. When asked in 2025 about O’Donnell’s move to Ireland, he quipped: “Do you know who she is? You’re better off not knowing.”
Back in 2006, he threatened to sue her over false statements, telling PEOPLE, “Rosie will rue the words she said… I look forward to taking lots of money from my nice fat little Rosie.”
Despite years of public insults, O’Donnell has stayed vocal. She protested outside the White House in 2018 and has remained one of Trump’s fiercest celebrity critics.
No Legal Grounds
While Trump’s claim of revoking O’Donnell’s citizenship set off headlines, legal experts have quickly noted there is no constitutional mechanism for a president to unilaterally strip an American of their citizenship, the New York Post reports.
O’Donnell was born in Long Island and, under current law, retains her citizenship even if she obtains Irish citizenship.
The comment appears to be yet another rhetorical salvo in their long-running war of words—but one that O’Donnell, as ever, is not backing down from. As she put it: “I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”