Back in July, Donald Trump threatened to revoke Rosie O’Donnell’s citizenship.
Nothing came of it, as O’Donnell was born in New York City, and the 14th Amendment grants citizenship to anyone born in the US.
It was the sort of remark that supporters and detractors alike dismissed as one of Trump’s idle threats.
But now, the president is doubling down on his plan to ban O’Donnell from her home country.
Trump says O’Donnell is eligible to have citizenship revoked
“As previously mentioned, we are giving serious thought to taking away Rosie O’Donnell’s Citizenship,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform this week, adding:
“She is not a Great American and is, in my opinion, incapable of being so!”
O’Donnell replied to the provocation with an Instagram post in which she likened Trump to Brian Cox’s character on the HBO drama Succession.
“Banishing me again? Logan Roy would be proud. I’m the distraction – EPSTEIN SURVIVORS are the reckoning and your gold lamé throne is melting,” she wrote.
O’Donnell previously compared Trump to a different HBO villain, writing:
“Go ahead and try, king joffrey with a tangerine spray tan. i’m not yours to silence i never was.”
On Instagram, thousands of followers flooded O’Donnell’s comments section with messages of support.
“The fact that he’s considering revoking the citizenship of a US-born citizen just because they don’t agree with him shows that it was never about making America ‘safer,’ it was, and has continued to be about an agenda,” one person wrote.
“You were one of the first to call him out, and a woman…standing up to him…he’s never gotten over that. Well done Rosie!” another added.
“Epstein files must be really, really bad. Huge,” a third chimed in,” a third chimed in.
It’s unclear why Trump decided to repeat his threat against O’Donnell last night, especially as there appears to be no legal justification for revoking her citizenship.
For many, the situation calls to mind Trump’s comments toward Taylor Swift, whose name he seems to invoke at random times.
Perhaps only the president himself knows if there’s a strategic reason for these mentions.
But if the goal was to stir up more controversy, he’s certainly been successful.