Rosie O'Donnell, who famously packed up and moved to Ireland after Trump won in 2024, popped back onto American television screens Friday to deliver what can only be described as a medical diagnosis she is in no way qualified to give. Appearing on Jake Tapper's CNN program, O'Donnell predicted that Trump would die before his term ends in January 2029, claiming his cognitive decline is obvious to anyone paying attention, as Conservative Brief reported.
Nothing says "I moved to Ireland to get away from all this" quite like continuing to appear on American cable news to talk about the guy you moved to Ireland to get away from.
Tapper had asked O'Donnell if she planned to return to the U.S. once Trump leaves office. She responded by saying she didn't think he would make it that long, pointing to Trump mistakenly referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as "Putin" during the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey last week. Tapper helpfully added that Trump also appeared to refer to Iran as the "Islamic Republic of Japan" in recent remarks.
"He makes the kind of mistakes that you would forgive at Thanksgiving dinner, but you would never let grandpa cut the turkey, because it might be dangerous because he doesn't know what he's saying," O'Donnell said. She called it evidence of "dementia," though neither she nor Tapper applied this same diagnostic rigor during President Biden's well documented struggles while in office.
O'Donnell also claimed that "fascism has already arrived" in the U.S., while criticizing left-wing Democrats for not treating things as urgent enough. The White House has rejected similar claims from other Democrats, calling them "desperate" attempts to gain attention and defending the president's health as "exceptional." Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker made similar accusations earlier this month in a CNN interview.
The feud between O'Donnell and Trump is older than some college freshmen at this point. Trump has repeatedly gone after her on Truth Social, even threatening to revoke her citizenship and calling her a "Threat to Humanity," which is a heck of a thing to put on a business card.
O'Donnell "quietly" returned to the U.S. back in February, telling former CNN host Chris Cuomo on his SiriusXM show that she came to visit family. "I was recently home for two weeks, and I did not really tell anyone," she said. "I just went to see my family. I wanted to see how hard it would be for me to get in and out of the country." She hinted it was somehow harder to do since Trump took office again.
She also said America "feels like a very different country" now, though she admitted she hasn't "been watching the news" or keeping up with "American culture television" while living in Ireland. So to summarize: she stopped watching American news, moved to a different country, and then went on American news to explain how different America feels based on not watching American news.
"I've been in a place where celebrity worship does not exist," she said from a cable news studio where she was being interviewed specifically because she is a celebrity.
You really cannot make this stuff up.
Like what you see? Then sign up for our Free Newsletter
