Former US Attorney Joyce Vance issued a warning after President Donald Trump threatened to revoke comedian and actress Rosie O'Donnell's citizenship, calling the move an embrace of "the powers of a full-blown dictator."
On Saturday morning, Trump called O'Donnell a "threat to humanity" on his social media platform, Truth Social. "Because of the fact that Rosie O'Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship," he wrote. O'Donnell is currently living in Ireland, having relocated following Trump's 2024 election victory.
Lest anyone had missed the plot line, he is claiming the powers of a full-blown dictator for himself with this https://t.co/fYwRjaha5G
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) July 12, 2025
"Lest anyone had missed the plot line, he is claiming the powers of a full-blown dictator for himself with this," Vance, who served as the US Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, warned of Trump's message about O'Donnell.
Legal experts say that Trump's threat, if attempted, would violate the constitution. "In 1967, the US Supreme Court declared in Afroyim v. Rusk that the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment bars the government from stripping citizenship, stating: 'In our country the people are sovereign and the government cannot sever its relationship to the people by taking away their citizenship,'" University of Virginia law professor Amanda Frost told the New York Times.
Trump's threat against O'Donnell is part of a broader pattern. The president has previously mused about deporting Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a naturalized citizen, and has floated baseless claims about Democratic New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani's immigration status. He is notoriously litigious, and has previously demanded investigations into public figures like Bruce Springsteen and Beyoncé over their political endorsements.
The latest threat to wield executive power comes amid policy changes that expand presidential power. The Supreme Court recently stripped the lower court's power to block executive action, and permitted the administration to begin deporting migrants to unrelated foreign countries. Trump has even floated the idea of deporting US citizens, and signed an executive order to end birthright citizenship.
While Trump's threat to strip O'Donnell's citizenship lacks legal substance, his administration has repeatedly tested the legal limits of executive powers — and found those limits to be somewhat pliable.
O'Donnell however, was not chastened by Trump's threat. On Instagram, she called Trump "a criminal con man sexual abusing liar" and mocked him as "King Joffrey with a tangerine spray tan," referencing the infamous fictional tyrant from Game of Thrones.
Originally published on Latin Times
