8 hours ago
Rosie O'Donnell Stands Up to Threat Against Her Citizenship
Kilian Melloy READ TIME: 4 MIN.
Rosie O'Donnell isn't backing down in the face of threats to her American citizenship from none other than the president of the United States.
"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 declared in a July 12 social media post, before adding that O'Donnell, who currently resides in Ireland, ought to stay there "if they want her."
The post was made "despite a decades-old Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits such an action by the government," the Associated Press reported.
O'Donnell clapped back hard with an Instagram post the next day. Her post was addressed to Trump and included a photo of Trump together with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In the post, O'Donnell declared herself to be "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 build walls – I build a life for my autistic kid in a country where decency still exists," O'Donnell wrote in the post. "you crave loyalty – I teach my children to question power".
The post 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 – and I'm everything you hate about what's still right with it".
The epic callout was "the latest move in a yearslong back-and-forth between the two New York-born former TV stars," TIME Magazine reported.
The 63-year-old actor and former talk show host is a native-born U.S. citizen whose father was an Irish immigrant. As previously reported, O'Donnell moved to Ireland after last year's election and has posted on social media that she would "consider coming back" at a time "when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America".
The feud between O'Donnell and Trump has roots that run deep. The comedian "criticized Trump in 2006 during an episode of the round-table talk show 'The View,' of which she was a panelist," TIME recalled. "O'Donnell mocked Trump in relation to a press conference he appeared in for the Miss USA contest, which he co-owned at the time."
"Meanwhile, Trump lashed out in a celebrity-edition episode of 'The Apprentice' at a boardroom meeting, during which he called O'Donnell 'disgusting' multiple times," the article went on to say.
Some took note of the timing of Trump's weekend post about O'Donnell's citizenship. Epstein, who was convicted of sex crimes against children, died in prison in 2019. Suicide was the official finding as to his cause of death. Since then, questions have swirled about Epstein's death – and about a supposed "client list" that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi had claimed in February was sitting on her desk, only for Bondi to do a 180 recently and announce in a release that no such "client list" existed.
"The memo enraged Trump supporters," NBC News reported, and at a right-wing gathering over the weekend, Trump himself fanned the flames to an even more intense degree, declaring that the so-called Epstein Files were "written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden administration."
Trump made that post even as a right-wing gathering, sponsored by Turning Point USA, echoed with chatter about the "Epstein Files," NBC News reported, noting that Bondi's contradictory statements about the supposed files "has consumed the right for the past week – and longer."
Taking to social media, Trump declared, "For years, it's Epstein, over and over again," and blamed the supposed files on Democrats. "Why are we giving publicity to Files written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden administration."
His musings about snatching away O'Donnell's citizenship went up on social media on the same day, NBC News noted.
But the threat against O'Donnell did not quell the criticism from the right.
"Former Florida state Rep. Anthony Sabatini, who was among Trump's biggest supporters when in the state Legislature and was in attendance at the event, called Trump's Truth Social post 'out of touch,'" NBC News relayed.
"Trump is losing his touch," Sabatini declared. "Bad personnel are undermining him left and right. We need a full reset."
A 24-year-old who was at the gathering told NBC News that the problem was "not even about Pam Bondi to me. It's like, look, Trump, we elected you because you were supposed to be different."
Added the young attendee: "We trusted you to get rid of these people and expose these people."
Instead, there seems to be a sense among MAGA that the president might be helping to sweep something under the rug.
"I think that these people – and I don't know, for whatever reason, there could be reasons – but I don't think they're telling us the truth about Epstein," NBC News quoted a right-wing pundit named Brandon Tatum as saying to "the assembled crowd at the Tampa Convention Center."
Continued Tatum: "I think that that guy was involved in something nefarious that implicates a whole lot of people. And my guess is that a whole lot of people may happen to be some of our allies and some people that we don't want to have a bad relationship with."
O'Donnell's post concluded with a comparison between Trump and an immature despot depicted on the fantasy series "Game of Thrones."
"you want to revoke my citizenship? go ahead and try, king joffrey with a tangerine spray tan," O'Donnell wrote. "i'm not yours to silence i never was".
Kilian Melloy serves as EDGE Media Network's Associate Arts Editor and Staff Contributor. His professional memberships include the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, The Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association, and the Boston Theater Critics Association's Elliot Norton Awards Committee.