The hosts of The View applauded Rosie O’Donnell fleeing the United States and moving her family to Ireland over President Donald Trump taking office again.
Trump and O’Donnell’s feud dates all the way back to 2006 when O’Donnell was a co-host on The View and the two had a heated exchange on the program. Trump publicly insulted O’Donnell multiple times after the interview and later took a shot at her during a 2015 presidential debate.
O’Donnell explained in a recent TikTok video that she left the country for Ireland just days before Trump’s inauguration, and she is currently applying for citizenship. She said she will not consider a return to the United States until “it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there.”
“[Trump’s] going to be mad at Ireland now. Here comes the potato tariff!” Joy Behar joked on Friday’s The View after watching Trump talking to the Irish prime minister in the White House about O’Donnell’s move.
“He’s a toddler,” Sunny Hostin added. “His frontal lobe is not really fully developed in my opinion, and so he probably suffers from that imposter syndrome and maybe she called him out on it?”
Behar was a co-host with O’Donnell and she theorized it was O’Donnell pressing Trump on his finances and bankruptcies that really triggered him.
“He was so vicious to her on every station. People would take his phone calls at every station. MSNBC, CNN, everywhere he went. Even here,” Behar said.
Ana Navarro recalled attending the 2015 debate where Trump name-dropped O’Donnell on stage. After moderator Megyn Kelly noted Trump had referred to women as ‘fat pigs,’ ‘dogs,’ ‘slobs,’ and ‘disgusting animals,’ Trump replied, “only Rosie O’Donnell.” Navarro said O’Donnell texted her moments after Trump mentioned her.
Navarro argued it makes sense why O’Donnell would flee the country.
She said:
If you’re Rosie O’Donnell, who he hates and, in fairness, she hates him, it’s mutual, and you are listening to him threaten Liz Cheney and you’re looking at him go after law firms, and you are listening to him saying he’s coming back to be the retribution, and you know how ruthless and how vicious he is that he personally hates you, and you have a 12-year-old with special needs, and you want to bring her up in a place of love and peace and you have the resources and ability, then you make the hard decision of leaving, good for her. Good that she’s fought her entire life, she’s putting herself first. I’m very supportive.
Sara Haines meanwhile called Trump’s behavior “textbook bullies for dummies.”
Alyssa Farah Griffin somewhat pivoted to say there is a misconception among many that Europe is somehow more “progressive” than the United States.
“We remain one of the most ethnically diverse nations on Earth. We’re the one where you’re most likely to come in from one socio-economic class and in your lifetime be in a completely different one. This table doesn’t exist in a lot of Europe. On LGBTQ rights issues, we are about as advanced as most of Europe,” she said.
Hostin pushed back saying the country isn’t “working for everyone” while lamenting that “most of us are stuck here.”
“It doesn’t seem to be working for everyone. And I think that’s Rosie O’Donnell’s prerogative and that’s her point,” she said. “It doesn’t work for her family and she’s one of the few who can pick up her life and move somewhere. Most of us are stuck here.”
