No one can get under Donald Trump’s skin the way Rosie O’Donnell can. But now that he’s president, Trump thinks he has the ultimate solution for dealing with his hatred of her: strip her of her American citizenship.

In a social media post last Saturday, Trump responded to O’Donnell’s most recent criticisms by acting like a “king–or dictator.

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“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 said. “She is a Threat to Humanity, and should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her. GOD BLESS AMERICA!” O’Donnell moved to Ireland earlier this year, citing Trump’s election as the reason.

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Of course, what Trump meant by “best interests” was his own ego, which O’Donnell has an especially good way of demolishing. Her response to his threat was an epic takedown, starting with the photo of Trump with the late sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein. (Trump is taking hits from his conspiracy-minded followers for not releasing an alleged client list, a rumor that the left has gleefully seized upon.)

“I still live rent-free in that collapsing brain of yours,” O’Donnell gloated. “[Y]ou call me a threat to humanity –
but I’m 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 want to revoke my citizenship?
go ahead and try, king joffrey with a tangerine spray tan. i’m not yours to silence
i never was.”

As a strong woman who speaks Trump’s brand of New York-ese, O’Donnell and Trump have been at loggerheads for almost 20 years. The fight began in 2006, when O’Donnell criticized Trump, then the owner of the Miss USA contest, as a “snake-oil salesman on Little House On The Prairie.” Trump fired back, over the years calling O’Donnell a “fat pig” and homophobically calling O’Donnell “he.”

Predictably, the media are treating this as a bit of a media circus between two publicity hounds. “Trump says he’s considering revoking Rosie O’Donnell’s citizenship, reigniting decades long feud,” CNN declared.

What Trump is igniting is the Constitution, not a feud. While it’s easy to dismiss Trump’s threat as just part of a long-running “feud,” he’s not the owner of the Miss USA contest anymore. He just threatened to undertake one of the most authoritarian actions a president could – strip someone of their citizenship simply for criticizing him.

Trump clearly has a definition of citizenship that is based on loyalty and on race. His roundup of immigrants has become a textbook example of racial profiling. He also threatened to revoke Elon Musk’s citizenship after Musk criticized Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. (In that example, he may actually have a case, since Musk overstayed his student visa to remain in the U.S. illegally, according to the Washington Post.)

But Rosie O’Donnell was born in a New York suburb, not far from where Trump himself was raised. Citizenship is conferred upon anyone born in the U.S. Trump is already trying to revoke that for the children of undocumented immigrants (who are, not coincidentally, largely non-white). O’Donnell’s father was an Irish immigrant who come to the country legally, while her mother was born in the U.S.

Trump’s threat is a major escalation of his attack on democracy. Imagine if Joe Biden had threatened to revoke Roseanne Barr’s citizenship because Barr “joked” about Biden raping her. Republicans would be tripping over themselves to bring impeachment proceedings.

The fact that Trump is targeting O’Donnell is beside the point. The fact that they have hated each other for decades is beside the point. The point is that the president is assigning the power of deciding who is a citizen solely to himself, by fiat.

That is not what happens in a democracy. The threat is not “a headline-grabbing provocation,” as The New York Times calls it. It is a threat to our rule of law.

In its ongoing effort to show its objectivity in the face of the unprecedented attack on our democracy, the Times added this note: “Experts said the president does not have the power to take away the citizenship of a U.S.-born citizen.”

Experts also say that the sun rises in the east. However, as a statement of fact, no one feels the need to attribute that reality to “experts.” Instead, the media hides behind experts or “critics” instead of taking responsibility for the magnitude of what is actually happening.

Invariably, the media will move on to another Trump controversy, whether its his whims about tariffs or efforts to bring universities to heel. But this threat marks a significant milestone in the erosion of constitutional protections. Trump is saying that citizenship is something he can remove from even native-born Americans, which is a threat to everyone.

O’Donnell will be alright in the long run, although the threat will no doubt take an emotional toll. But most people don’t have her resources and can’t move to Ireland. For those people, the threat is a sign that Trump can make American citizens stateless if he has his way.

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