‘Buckle Up, People!’ Rosie O’Donnell Unleashes on Trump in Fiery Start as ‘Kimmel’ Guest Host

Rosie O’Donnell wasted no time reigniting her feud with President Donald Trump as she opened her guest-hosting stint at Jimmy Kimmel Live! with a barrage of jokes aimed squarely at the president.

The comedian, who now lives in Ireland but is filling in for Jimmy Kimmel during his summer break, returned to TV hosting duties on Monday for the first time in decades and immediately warned viewers, and the president, what was coming.

“They said you can’t come home again, but here I am!” O’Donnell said. “And if you thought the president hated Jimmy Kimmel Live! when it was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, buckle up, people!”

She continued, with a dig at the president’s policies: “I haven’t sat behind a desk on TV in almost 30 years, and a lot has changed since the ’90s. 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 quipped, tongue-in-cheek.

“I’ve been living in Ireland for the past two years because of Mango Mussolini,” she added. “I read that Project 2025 and said, ‘Gotta get myself out of here.’ And I decided to go to Ireland, a place where people are driven to drink regardless of who’s running their country.”

She recalled telling her child to keep the family’s move quiet, only for the youngster to tell classmates: “I’m very sorry I won’t be able to graduate sixth grade with you. I’m being forced to move to another country because the president of the United States hates my mother. But in all fairness, I believe my mother hates him more.”

O’Donnell then paused, waving into the camera and declaring, “Hi, I know you’re watching!”

The pair’s feud predates Trump’s political career but escalated after his return to the White House. In 2025, Trump publicly threatened to strip O’Donnell of her U.S. citizenship, calling her “a Threat to Humanity.”

O’Donnell went on to describe her new home in small-town Ireland as her “refuge” and “salvation” while praising locals as “the kindest people” she’d “ever met.”

As she closed out her first monologue, the first of several she’s set to deliver as she guest-hosts throughout the week, she jabbed once more at Trump, who she’d managed not to name despite the multiple barbs throughout: “Right now, he’s in the White House crying because I haven’t mentioned him.”

Watch above via ABC.

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