Trump informs America we have always been at war with Rosie O'Donnell
Trump issued a message on social media this weekend claiming he could revoke native-born U.S. citizen O'Donnell's citizenship.
Photo: Photo: Carmen Mandato/Getty Images
There have been a lot of arguments of late—and by arguments, we basically mean “Donald Trump says one thing, and then every judge and legal scholar of any standing in America goes ‘Hey, what the fuck?'”—over the concept of birthright citizenship. Which is to say, the idea that being born in the United States confers a permanent state of citizenship that can’t be revoked by the government, even if, for instance, you are a well-known New York-born comic actor and former talk show host who has said a lot of mean things about the current Commander-In-Chief.
All of which is to note that Trump issued a message this morning on his Truth Social platform—your one-stop shop for angry uncle-style social media screeds that might, horrifyingly, someday become U.S. governmental policy—saying he was giving “serious consideration” to revoking the citizenship of noted critic/Tarzan star Rosie O’Donnell. O’Donnell has been an outspoken opponent of Trump, calling out the many authoritarian and dangerous moves he’s made over the last decade. Like, for instance, threatening a U.S. citizen with having her citizenship revoked because she doesn’t like him very much. Saying she’s “not in the best interests of our Great Country,” and “a Threat To Humanity,” Trump is, on the surface, engaging in his usual pro-wrestling style of rhetoric, with O’Donnell firing back, calling him “a mentally ill untreated criminal.” But it’s impossible not to also see his threats as a further effort at normalizing the idea that revoking someone’s citizenship for speech he doesn’t like is something he could do, despite the fact that the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is pretty clear on these matters. (It makes no exceptions, for instance, for how you personally might feel about a citizen’s recent episode of …And Just Like That.) All of which is pretty genuinely terrifying: After all, if he can do it to any of the stars of Sleepless In Seattle, he could just as easily do it to the rest of us.