Rosie O’Donnell says she didn’t attend her daughter’s college graduation because of security concerns related to her long-standing feud with President Trump.
“My daughter graduated college, and I didn’t go back because the security people said to me they didn’t think it was wise,” the comedian said in an interview on the “No Filter” podcast released this week.
“Because I think Trump will use me to rile his base,” O’Donnell, 63, continued.
“I’m his nemesis in his mind and to them … to like a third of the country,” the former “The View” co-host and longtime critic of Trump said.
The public battle between O’Donnell and Trump began nearly two decades ago after the comic referred to the then-New York real estate developer as a “snake oil salesman.” Trump over the years has ripped O’Donnell, calling her “unattractive,” “mentally sick” and a “loser,” while she’s dubbed him a “criminal con man” and “cheater.”
O’Donnell moved from the U.S. to Ireland just days ahead of Trump’s inauguration in January.
“It was not a political statement as much as it was self-preservation,” she said of her exit from the country.
In recent weeks, Trump has repeatedly threatened to strip O’Donnell of her American citizenship, calling her a “threat to humanity.”
O’Donnell, speaking with podcast host Kate Langbroek, described her move to Ireland as “quite a success.”
“People say to me, ‘Why do you still talk about [Trump] and the country if you left?’ Well, I never gave up my citizenship, nor would I, although I’m getting my dual citizenship to become an Irish citizen as well, because my grandparents are from Ireland,” the “A League of Their Own” actor said.
“I care about my country. I love my country. I am very patriotic, and I knew that I would not be able to deal with what was about to happen, and it certainly has,” O’Donnell said.
“I think the United States is in serious trouble at this point,” she said, denouncing Trump for deploying National Guard troops to cities such as Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., where there is “no unrest, there are no insurrections, where there is not mass violence.”
Trump, O’Donnell said, is “afraid of smart, informed, strong women.”
“I think that everything he says indicts him, and strong women are his kryptonite. He falls apart,” she said.
“I think that strong women scare him and infuriate him, and I’m one of them,” O’Donnell said.
But she quipped that Trump might have been helpful in boosting ticket sales for an upcoming performance of her one-person show in Australia.
“In 2013, I was booked to [perform in Australia], but I couldn’t go because I didn’t sell enough tickets. … I think Donald Trump has made me re-famous. He really has,” O’Donnell said with a slight grin.
“My brother said, ‘If he only knew that he reignited your career, he would be miserable.'”