In the long-running feud between Donald Trump and Rosie O’Donnell, the insults have evolved from barbs on daytime talk shows to full-blown constitutional theater. Now, the president has escalated it yet again, declaring on Truth Social that he’s “giving serious thought to taking away Rosie O’Donnell’s Citizenship,” citing her alleged failure to qualify as a “Great American.”
The post, while inflammatory, lacks legal grounding. U.S. citizenship, once granted by birth under the 14th Amendment, cannot be revoked by presidential decree—no matter how personal the grudge or how heated the rhetoric. O’Donnell was born in Commack, New York. Her citizenship isn’t just intact—it’s ironclad.
Still, Trump’s statement wasn’t about legal feasibility. It was about political symbolism. The post reinforces a core Trumpian theme: loyalty to country, as defined by Trump himself. Those who publicly oppose him—particularly celebrities who lean into their resistance with the volume turned up—are recast not simply as critics, but as traitors. And in Rosie’s case, he’s labeled her a “Threat to Humanity.”
That may sound absurd, but it’s no less calculated.
O’Donnell, for her part, has leaned into the persona Trump’s crafted for her, responding with snark, pop culture jabs (comparing him to “King Joffrey with a tangerine spray tan”), and performative defiance.
She recently left the country altogether, moving to Ireland with her daughter and applying for dual citizenship. Her public explanation? The U.S. political climate no longer feels safe for “all citizens to have equal rights.”
Ironically, her decision to exit the U.S. now plays directly into Trump’s narrative—"good riddance" dressed in nationalistic righteousness. When asked in March about O'Donnell by a reporter during a visit with Ireland’s prime minister, Trump quipped, “You’re better off not knowing who she is.” The burn was as offhanded as it was deliberate.
But underneath the theatrics is a deeper commentary on the culture war America is still unwilling to resolve. O'Donnell, emblematic of liberal celebrity resistance, recently posted a video blaming the MAGA movement for a horrific school shooting—only to later retract her statement and issue a full apology after it was revealed that the shooter didn’t fit her assumptions.
Her apology was surprisingly candid: “I messed up... and when you mess up, you fess up.” But the damage was done, and the initial claim was already circulating through the political bloodstream. For Trump and his supporters, it served as another exhibit in the case against mainstream media, liberal bias, and the supposed double standards of celebrity activism.