Donald Trump has stated that he is considering “taking away” actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell’s US citizenship, despite a Supreme Court judgement that clearly prevents the government from doing so. On Saturday, the US president said on Truth Social, “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.”
He also described O’Donnell, who has relocated to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and advised her to “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”. O’Donnell responded on Instagram by uploading a photo of Mr Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. “You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she added along with the post. “I am not yours to silence. “I never was.”
O’Donnell relocated to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January, after Mr Trump won a second term. She has stated that she is in the process of gaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she will only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”. O’Donnell and the US president have been openly criticising each other for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s entry into politics.
This is the president’s latest threat to withdraw the citizenship of someone with whom he disagrees, most recently Elon Musk, his former buddy. However, the two scenarios differ in that Musk was born in South Africa, whereas O’Donnell was born in the United States and has a constitutional claim to American citizenship.
According to Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, the Supreme Court held in 1967 that the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution prohibits the government from taking away citizenship. “The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” according to him. “In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.
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