Rosie O’Donnell Calls Out Donald Trump in First “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Monologue: ‘Hi, I Know You’re Watching!’

Brenton BlanchetTue, August 18, 2026 at 2:11 PM UTC

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Rosie O Donnell; Donald TrumpCredit: Jimmy Kimmel Live/YouTube; Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty -

Rosie O’Donnell’s run on Jimmy Kimmel Live! has begun

The comedian kicked off her guest-hosting duties on Monday, Aug. 17, sharing a message for President Donald Trump

Jimmy Kimmel Live! airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. ET on ABC

Rosie O’Donnell kicked off her week guest-hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live! with a special shoutout to President Donald Trump.

On Monday, Aug. 17, the comedian appeared on the ABC late-night show as she filled in for Jimmy Kimmel in his absence. During her opening monologue, she even incorporated a cheeky message for Trump, 80.

“I’ve been living in Ireland for the past two years because of Mango Mussolini,” O’Donnell, 64, said of her recent move. “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.”

Rosie O Donnell hosts ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ on Aug. 17, 2026Credit: Jimmy Kimmel Live/YouTube

O’Donnell explained that she encouraged her then-11-year-old child to not “tell anyone,” before they went on to “tell their entire class.”

“‘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,’” O’Donnell said, impersonating her youngest child, Clay. “‘But in all fairness, I believe my mother hates him more.’”

O’Donnell then shared a message for the president, along with a smile and a wave to the cameras: “Hi, I know you’re watching!”

Elsewhere in her opening monologue, the comedian detailed a few of her experiences in Ireland, where she and Clay moved in January 2025. To kick things off, she walked out on stage to audience applause and chants of “ROS-IE,” a callback to her years hosting The Rosie O’Donnell Show from 1996 to 2002.

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“Things were a little different back then,” she said. “They called me the ‘Queen of Nice’... I haven’t sat behind a desk on TV in almost 30 years and a lot has changed since the ‘90s. Back then, there was a war in the Middle East, climate change was ravaging out planet, we had a president who was embroiled in scandals. But today, everything is so chill.”

O’Donnell will continue to guest-host the talk show throughout the week, concluding her run on Thursday, Aug. 20.

In July, O’Donnell appeared on the cover of PEOPLE and detailed her dynamic with Trump, who has had a publicly contentious history with the comedian. She noted that it’s “very strange to have supposedly the most powerful man in the word be your arch nemesis” after “20 years of him using me as a punchline.”

“It used to be when our president would say things about me, it would be like, whoa,” she said. “First of all, if you had written this as a movie, a stand-up comic makes fun of a reality show host who is a bloviating idiot and he ends up being the president, and then he doesn’t shut up about her for 20 years, it would be unbelievable — and the fact that it’s my life is very trippy.”

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As for the Kimmel gig, she said she was “happy that he asked me” and that she admired his “tenacity and strength.” O’Donnell is the latest in a string of guest hosts to handle the ABC talk show, following Tiffany Haddish, Colman Domingo, Ike Barinholtz and Anthony Anderson.

Jimmy Kimmel Live! airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. ET on ABC.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”