Rosie O’Donnell is leaning into her longstanding feud with President Donald Trump on late-night, even if she doesn’t speak his name.
O’Donnell is filling in as a guest host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” for the week of Aug. 17. (Jimmy Kimmel is taking a summer break from hosting.) Kimmel had teased O’Donnell as a possible guest host earlier this year, saying he invited her “as a special treat for our commander-in-chief.”
With her nightly monologues, she has taken the opportunity to taunt Trump, even without saying his name. Asked about her latest remarks, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle called her a “nasty woman” and accused her of having “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
The exchange is just the latest in a decades-long public spat between Trump and O’Donnell. Here is what to know.
Rosie O’Donnell calls Trump ‘sweetie’ and ‘Oompa J. Loompa’
When O’Donnell started her guest-host spree on Aug. 17, she said, “if you thought the president hated ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ when it was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, buckle up, people!”
O’Donnell hosted her own talk show from 1996 to 2002 and went on to co-host “The View” in 2006.
“I haven’t sat behind a desk on TV in almost 30 years, and a lot has changed since the ’90s,” she said. “Well, back then, there was a war in the Middle East, climate change was ravaging our planet, we had a president who was embroiled in scandals. But today, everything is so chill.”
She moved to Ireland for the most recent Trump presidency.
“This has been kind of a strange experience for me because all of a sudden I’m re-famous. I’m back in the spotlight all thanks to President Oompa J. Loompa, who is watching us this evening from inside a catering cart,” she said during her monologue Aug. 18, waving to the camera. “I couldn’t have done it without you, sweetie.”
It was the second night of talking about Trump without naming him, instead using names like “Velvito Corleone” to refer to him.
Trump’s and Rosie O’Donnell’s dispute stretches back decades
Trump and O’Donnell’s feud dates back to 2006, when the latter was a host on “The View.” She criticized Trump as a “snake oil salesman” in connection to his ownership of the Miss USA competition at the time, setting off years of back-and-forth spats between the two.
In 2025, as Trump began his second presidency, O’Donnell revealed she moved to Ireland to escape the United States’ political climate. The president has since threatened to revoke O’Donnell’s birthright citizenship on multiple occasions.
O’Donnell opened up to People magazine in an interview published July 22 about relocating to Ireland last year, saying she is “softer” in part because she is “not being constantly bombarded by news about the current president.”
“I think that has allowed me to reclaim myself, who I was before all that went down, even though it’s very strange to have supposedly the most powerful man in the world be your arch nemesis,” she said.
O’Donnell’s latest comments to People came weeks after being the subject of a video Trump posted on social media.
In the AI-generated video, which was posted July 2, Trump appears as a doctor “treating” several celebrities, including O’Donnell, for “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” Trump has long used the term to describe critics he sees as irrationally opposed to him.
The comedian responded in a July 8 interview with Variety, calling Trump “the worst thing that ever happened to our country.”
Contributing: Brendan Morrow, Saman Shafiq, USA TODAY
Kinsey Crowley is the Trump Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at KCrowley@usatodayco.com. Follow her on X (Twitter), Threads, Bluesky and TikTok.