The White House declined to comment on whether Trump was serious about the threat, or how he would revoke the American actor’s citizenship — a move for which there is no clear legal precedent.
The Trump administration has sought to severely curtail paths to citizenship — and pursued ways of stripping some Americans of their citizenship altogether — as Trump aims to narrow the definition of what it means to be an American.
The president has looked to end birthright citizenship, declaring in a January executive order that babies born in the U.S. may not be considered citizens unless one or more of their parents is an American citizen or permanent resident.
The move prompted a legal battle over the constitutionality of Trump’s executive order, with a federal judge in New Hampshire this week blocking the order just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that an earlier decision was too broad.
The administration has also pursued tactics to denaturalize some citizens. In a June 11 memo, Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate wrote that the Justice Department’s civil division would “prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings” for naturalized citizens — people who received their citizenship not via birthright — who have committed certain crimes.
Trump has also questioned the citizenship of other would-be political rivals — including New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a naturalized citizen.
O’Donnell lashed back out at Trump after his Saturday morning post, writing in an Instagram post that the president plans to “deport all who stand against” his “evil tendencies.”
“the president of the usa has always hated the fact that i see him for who he is – a criminal con man sexual abusing liar out to harm our nation to serve himself – this is why i moved to ireland,” O’Donnell wrote, bashing Trump as “a dangerous old soulless man with dementia who lacks empathy compassion and basic humanity.”
Trump and O’Donnell have long been in conflict, with their feud dating back to a 2006 episode of “The View,” which O’Donnell hosted at the time, in which the actor criticized Trump’s “moral compass,” prompting him to later lash out and call O’Donnell a “woman out of control.”
The rift between the two only grew when Trump entered the political arena. When asked by moderator Megyn Kelly at a 2015 Republican primary debate about his use of language like “fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals” to describe women, Trump responded: “only Rosie O’Donnell.”
Their animosity continued through Trump’s first term in the White House, with O’Donnell saying at the time she worried about her ability to “live through” his presidency.
And when Trump was elected a second time last year, O’Donnell decided to leave the country.
In a highly public departure, the actor announced that she and her 12-year-old child had moved to Ireland in mid-January.
“When it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America, that’s when we will consider coming back,” O’Donnell said in a March TikTok post. “It’s been heartbreaking to see what’s been happening politically,” the actor said, adding that she was going through the process of obtaining her Irish citizenship through her grandparents.
But O’Donnell hasn’t remained silent on U.S. politics despite her move, taking to social media last week to blame Trump for the deadly flash floods in Texas.
“When the president guts all of the early warning systems and the weathering forecast abilities of the government, these are the results that we’re going to start to see on a daily basis,” O’Donnell said in a post to TikTok.
