President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he was giving serious thought to stripping actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell of her US citizenship, a move he had threatened in the past but cannot legally do.
“As previously mentioned, we are giving serious thought to taking away Rosie O’Donnell’s Citizenship. She is not a Great American and is, in my opinion, incapable of being so!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Trump had made similar statements in recent months, including in July when he said he was considering pulling O’Donnell’s citizenship because she “is not in the best interests of our Great Country” and is a “Threat to Humanity.”
O’Donnell responded to the president’s post in July with a reference to the character King Joffrey from “Game of Thrones,” saying: “Go ahead and try, king joffrey with a tangerine spray tan. i’m not yours to silence i never was.”
The Constitution does not allow a president to strip citizenship of someone born in the US.
The 14th Amendment grants citizenship to anyone born in the US, and O’Donnell was born in Commack, New York.
O’Donnell, who has Irish grandparents, moved to Ireland with her daughter earlier this year following Trump’s electoral win and is in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship to become a dual citizen. She cited the current political climate as a reason for her move.
“When it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America, that’s when we will consider coming back,” she said in a TikTok.
In March, when a reporter asked the Irish prime minister during a visit to the White House why he would allow O’Donnell to move to Ireland, Trump jumped in and said he was better off not knowing who she was.
“Do you know who she is? You’re better off not knowing,” Trump said at the time.
Trump’s feud with O’Donnell has spanned nearly two decades, sparked by O’Donnell criticizing him on “The View” in 2006 about his decision to be lenient toward a Miss USA winner who had been accused of drug use and other controversies.
In 2015, during a Republican primary debate, a moderator asked Trump about his past use of derogatory terms to describe women.
“Only Rosie O’Donnell,” then-candidate Trump responded.
Last month, after a Minneapolis Catholic school shooting that left two children dead and more than a dozen wounded, O’Donnell posted a video purporting that the shooter was a MAGA supporter, a Republican and a white supremacist.
“What do you know? It was a white guy, Republican, MAGA person. What do you know? White supremacists,” she said.
O’Donnell later took down the video and apologized.
“I knew a lot of you were very upset about the video I made before I went away for a few days,” she said. “You are right. I did not do my due diligence before I made that emotional statement, and I said things about the shooter that were incorrect.
“I assumed, like most shooters, they followed a standard MO and had standard, you know, feelings of… you know, NRA-loving kind of gun people,” O’Donnell continued. “Anyway, the truth is I messed up, and when you mess up, you fess up. I’m sorry. This is my apology video and I hope it’s enough.”
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