Speaking to podcaster Kara Swisher, actor and comedian Rosie O'Donnell recently explained how she viewed President Donald Trump as a native New Yorker before he ever took office.
O'Donnell and Trump have feuded for years and O'Donnell, fearing the worst once Trump won the 2024 election, moved to Ireland shortly before he was inaugurated. She has cited the risks Project 2025 and Trump's potential retribution pose to her and her nonbinary child.
Last summer, Trump threatened to revoke O'Donnell's citizenship, labeling her a "Threat to Humanity." Trump's post came just days after O’Donnell shared a TikTok video in which she accused Trump of having “gut[ted] all of the early warning systems and the weather‑forecast abilities of the government,” which she said hindered the federal response to deadly floods in Texas.
O'Donnell told Swisher that when she publicly criticized Trump 20 years ago she "told the truth that every New Yorker my age knows about him."
In 2006, Trump decided not to fire a Miss USA contestant following revelations of underage drinking, drug use, and sexual activity, which prompted O'Donnell, who was a co-host on The View at the time, to criticize the decision.
At the time, O'Donnell described Trump as “not a self-made man” and referred to him as a “snake-oil salesman on Little House On The Prairie." Trump responded shortly afterward, calling her “a real loser” and “a woman out of control.”
O'Donnell said:
"When I talked about him on 'The View,' I told the truth that every New Yorker my age knows about him: that he is not a self-made man, that he got his father's money, that he is a grifter, that he is a logo-slapper, that he's not in fact a builder, that his 'Apprentice' days were all fiction sold as fact and people believed them."
"I saw him for who he was from the time I was a little kid, from the time I knew who he was. I was like, 'This guy's a joke, he’s a used car salesman, he’s a snake oil salesman.' And I said it and he went absolutely batsh*t crazy."
"I think it's because I'm from... Long Island and he's from Queens... I think I'm those girls that he didn't like in elementary school who were tough and maybe grew up to be gay who would talk back to the idiot rich boys who thought they were funny but they were obnoxious, and make fun of them."
"I think that's what got him. He thinks he's elevated himself from where he used to be to where he is now and I am one of the peasants and, 'How dare one of the peasants from my community speak to me like that.'"
O'Donnell also commented on Trump's apparent physical and cognitive decline, noting that "the fact that he’s falling asleep, that he’s very physically ill, that he doesn’t look like he’s long for this earth, that he shouldn’t be the man in control of the nuclear codes."
You can hear what she said in the video below.
Many concurred with her remarks.
In June, O'Donnell called Trump a "psychopath" when asked about him by a reporter for Variety on the red carpet at the Tony Awards.
She made similar remarks about Trump's history of being a "conman," recalling that Trump's planes were "repossessed at LaGuardia," that he was once "broke," and that Trump, courting attention, would "call up places and pretend to be his own publicist."
O'Donnell's remarks were a jab at Trump's long history of financial mismanagement, particularly the time Trump Shuttle Inc., his short-lived airline, defaulted on its debts and his creditors and a syndicate of banks seized his planes and took over.
Trump also frequently used an alias when he wanted distance from a controversy, a tougher intermediary voice, or a way to float statements without using his own name.
