A longtime Trump nemesis who vowed she would never return from her self-imposed exile in Ireland while he remains in control is now teasing a move home after Democrats won majorities in both chambers of Congress.
Rosie O’Donnell, the comedian, actor, and former host of The View, said in a video interview the day after the midterms that she went to bed in Dublin before the races were called Tuesday night and woke around 3 a.m. to her phone dinging. When she saw the results, she started to cry.
She is now thinking about moving back to New York. Dublin is “beautiful—we love it here, but my family’s not here,” she told The Washington Post. “And I miss my grown kids. I miss my grandson that was born six months ago. And I feel like I’ve missed half his life already and don’t want to miss any more.”
The pair have feuded for two decades, dating to her days on the ABC talk show, when she criticized Trump, then a reality TV star, over his relationships and controversial behavior. He called her “a woman out of control.”
He has often answered her criticism with vitriol, even threatening to revoke her U.S. citizenship after she moved to Ireland following his second election win.
This past summer, she returned to television with a week-long guest-hosting gig on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, targeting the president. In September, she teamed up with survivors of Jeffrey Epstein to go after the Trump administration.
Last month, on journalist Jim Acosta’s podcast, O’Donnell, 64, pointed to the moment from the campaign trail that she claims shows the president, 80, is deteriorating, as she and Acosta, 55, discussed Trump’s comments on male MAGA candidates’ bodies and his fascination with Ohio Senator Jon Husted’s bottom.
“For some reason,” said Acosta, “he thinks his best closing message in the final days of the campaign is talking about other dudes’ butts. He’s been talking about this senator from Ohio who’s in a tough race for re-election, Jon Husted, and keeps talking about how he’s examined his a--.”
The two watched footage of Trump openly admitting he was “studying” Husted’s body and later saying, “a--, s--t, it’s like, it’s like a pile of muscle.”
O’Donnell called the incident “freaky.”
“I mean, the absurdity,” she said. “Every time I read something like that, you know, about kids getting transgender surgery, I think of them eating cats and eating dogs. And people fell for that, too.”
“I mean, he was looking at his a--, his shoe size. What comes next? I wonder, Donald,” she said, laughing, “What are you thinking about, mushroom man?”
“I don’t know. It’s just, for me, you know, the dementia is winning,” she assessed. “Let’s just say that, because there’s no way that any public figure would be speaking the way he does and then, you know, loving the characteristics of the body of a man and telling beautiful women, ‘Quiet, piggy.’”
In September last year, Trump said he was giving “serious thought” to stripping O’Donnell’s U.S. citizenship. “She is not a Great American and is, in my opinion, incapable of being so!” he said on Truth Social.
