‘The View’: Joy Behar Digs Into the Donald Trump-Rosie O’Donnell Feud (VIDEO)

Amanda Bell March 14, 2025, 12:46 pm

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Joy Behar and Rosie O'Donnell on The View — ABC

After Rosie O’Donnell decided to move to Ireland in response to Donald Trump‘s second election to the presidency, Trump mocked the now-expat in front of the Irish prime minister during an Oval Office visit earlier in the week. So Joy Behar decided to explain exactly what Trump’s longstanding feud with O’Donnell is really about.

On Friday’s (March 14) episode of The View, the first “Hot Topic” of the day was to discuss her former cohost’s relocation, and after rolling footage of both O’Donnell’s explanation and Trump’s taunt, Behar joked, “Oh no, he’s going to be mad at Ireland now. Here come the potato tariffs!”

Sunny Hostin then asked Behar to explain what it was that first sparked Trump’s hatred for the comedian, noting, “He’s a toddler. His frontal lobe is not really fully developed, in my opinion, and so he probably suffers from that imposter syndrome, and maybe she did something that called him out?”

Behar, who said she was there for the incident in question, explained, “Well, if you watch the clip, she basically flipped her hair [to mock his hairstyle], which he didn’t care… He didn’t really care about that. It was the money, in my opinion. She was saying how many times he was bankrupted and blah, blah, blah… She called him out on it, and he freaked out, and he was so vicious to her on every station. He would take his phone calls and every station — MSNBC, CNN, everywhere he went, even here.”

Trump Critic Rosie O'Donnell Confirms Her Move Abroad

Alyssa Farah Griffin also noted that he “insulted” her during the Republicans’ first primary debate in 2016, and Ana Navarro revealed that she was there and received a fascinating response in real-time: “I was at that Republican debate…. Megyn Kelly asks the question, ‘You call women fat slobs’ … And he says, ‘Yes, but that’s just Rosie O’Donnell.’ And I remember so vividly because the entire place erupted in laughter, full of people, and my phone, I had it on my lap, on silent. My phone vibrated, and I looked down and it was Rosie, and she was texting me, and she said, ‘I am watching this debate with my kids so they learn about American government. How do I explain this to them?'”

When prompted for her response, Navarro explained, “The hell am I going to say to her at that point? ‘I’m sorry.’ I was mortified that that had happened. I said, ‘I’m sorry. I don’t have an explanation for how you explain it to your kids.’ But I do know that if you’re Rosie O’Donnell, who he hates — and, in fairness, she hates him, it’s mutual — and you are listening to him threatening 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, and 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. It’s good. She’s fought her entire life. She’s putting herself first.”

Sara Haines also weighed in on the subject, saying, “It’s a good teaching moment for a parent at that time because Donald Trump can best be described as a textbook ‘Bullies for Dummies.’ This is who he is. Way back in 1983, when Back to the Future came out, the character Biff was based on Donald Trump. That’s been confirmed. So you’re looking that he was already a bully…. It is a textbook example of explaining to your children they’re going to be people, that the only way they can be on top is to beat other people down, and those kids are going to run into that. Kids run into it every day. You just usually leave it behind on playgrounds across this country … and now we’re seeing it elevated to certain levels. But I do think it’s important to teach your kids about that because they’re absolutely going to run into people just like Donald Trump.”

Griffin then added, “I do think it’s important just to remember that America is bigger than the president, and I want to acknowledge that especially the LGBTQ community may feel uncomfortable in certain states right now. I just talked to Kara Swisher on our podcast yesterday about this, and I get if you have the means you want to make that decision. But I’d also remind folks, I think Americans love to think we’re so far behind and Europe is so progressive and ahead of us, it’s just not really the case. We remain the most ethnically diverse one, most ethnically diverse nations on Earth, we’re the one where you’re most likely to be able to come in from one socioeconomic 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.”

When challenged by Hostin, who said America is “pretty racist,” Griffin added, “Well, we have way more diversity, though, which is a good thing. When you’re a completely homogeneous nation like Denmark, they don’t deal with racism.”

“That’s why people are upset, because we like this country, we want it to stay!” Behar said.

“That’s my point, though. This country is bigger than who’s president for four years. I just think it’s important people remember there are places — I wouldn’t be able to get IVF treatments in Europe,” said Griffin. “I love my European friends, but we put everyone else on kind of this pedestal and act like America is so backward and broken… I think this is still the greatest nation on Earth.”

“It’s a pretty young democracy that doesn’t seem to be working right now,” Hostin countered. “It doesn’t seem to be working for everyone, and I think that’s Rosie O’Donnell’s prerogative, and that’s her point. It doesn’t work for her family, and she is one of the few people that can pick her life up and move it somewhere. Most of us are stuck here.”

“I would absolutely believe that this country is imperfect, and progress is slow, but I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else,” Haines said to put a button on the discussion.

TRUMP INSULTS ROSIE O’DONNELL OVER IRELAND MOVE: The co-hosts weigh in on the actress, comedian and former ‘View’ host explaining why she moved from the United States and react to the president’s remarks about it. pic.twitter.com/tSCWNpWPKC

— The View (@TheView) March 14, 2025