Donald Trump’s long-time nemesis, Rosie O’Donnell, can’t believe the crap he just pulled at the World Cup.
For the blissfully unaware, Trump, who is president of one of the host nations at this year’s World Cup, personally lobbied FIFA President Gianni Infantino to rescind a red card for Folarin Balogun that would have kept America’s best player out of their round of 16 knockout match against Belgium. The red card was excessive, to be sure, but Trump’s meddling — resulting in the first time a red card ruling had been reversed since 1962 — reeked of corruption to the rest of the world, and cast a pall over the U.S. men’s national team’s tournament run. It certainly didn’t help that Infantino had gifted Trump FIFA’s inaugural Peace Prize late last year to curry favour with the strongman.
“The fact that he called up FIFA and had the penalty revoked for the American team and America was like, ‘Yeah, that’s good! I didn’t think it was a red card anyway!’ Well, you’re not the freakin’ ref! You don’t get to decide!” O’Donnell tells Variety. “Since when does he get to make and change the rules, the goalposts, whatever metaphor you want to use, and everyone just sits by and shrugs their shoulders? There’s so much [corruption] that we don’t even notice it.”
O’Donnell spoke to Variety to promote her upcoming one-woman show “Rosie O’Donnell: Common Knowledge,” which will debut at New York City’s Daryl Roth Theatre on July 22 (the full interview will run online next week and also appear in the July 22 issue of Variety magazine). And the comedy legend says she was “horrified” that America’s fans and its team simply went along with Trump’s scheme.
“The fact that [Balogun] did not say, ‘I will not play this game,’ and the fact that the coach of the American team did not say, ‘This is not how we win,’ and that everyone was just like, ‘Well, whatever!’ I was horrified. I’m horrified that he is able to get away with pretty much everything, and it’s sickening.”
Last week, Trump posted an AI-generated video to social media of himself as a doctor diagnosing a number of celebrities — O’Donnell among them — with the fictional condition “Trump derangement syndrome.” The video was posted to Twitter by the White House’s official account and shared widely (previously, Trump has posted images to social media depicting himself as Jesus healing the sick and the Pope).
“He was allowed to go on a show [‘The Apprentice’] that was a reality show, and it was sold as fact when it was in fact fiction, because he was broke — one of the many times that he was broke — and this is a man who has been a failure at everything he’s ever tried, and he is mediocre beyond mediocre, and the fact that he is running our nation is an abomination,” O’Donnell exclaims, adding, “It’s the worst thing that ever happened to our country and I think it needs to be rectified sooner rather than later if we are to remain a democratic republic.”
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The Balogun meddling is particularly hypocritical considering that Balogun was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Nigerian parents who were living in London at the time, and is thus a birthright citizen. Trump not only recently tried to overturn birthright citizenship via executive order (which was struck down by the Supreme Court), but also publicly threatened to revoke O’Donnell’s birthright citizenship in a fit of rage last summer. But O’Donnell says she will always be an American citizen:
“I will never give up my American citizenship and that’s the only way it can be taken from you if you’re an American citizen, no matter what the current president says.”
From Variety US