A rumor that circulated online in October 2025 claimed U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had confirmed officials revoked comedian Rosie O’Donnell’s passport after she forfeited her U.S. citizenship. According to the story, Rubio said, “She wanted to be an Irish citizen. Now she can stay there.”

On Oct. 15, the America’s Last Line of Defense Facebook page posted a brief video displaying a meme showing photos of O’Donnell and Rubio. The meme read, “Marco Rubio confirms: Rosie O’Donnell’s passport has been revoked after she forfeited her American citizenship: ‘She wanted to be an Irish citizen. Now she can stay there.’” The post received tens of thousands of engagements.

(America’s Last Line of Defense/Facebook)

Some commenters seemed to interpret the rumor as a factual recounting of real-life events. However, the rumor originated with America’s Last Line of Defense — a network of Facebook pages and websites describing their output as parody and satire. For example, the network’s Dunning-Kruger-Times.com website hosts an “About Us” page labeling their content as “parody, satire and tomfoolery.” The page also features a jab at Snopes for fact-checking some of their articles and posts.

Further, we searched Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo, locating no evidence of Rubio confirming officials revoked O’Donnell’s passport, nor of O’Donnell “forfeiting” her U.S. citizenship.

The fictional story spread months after O’Donnell — an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump — confirmed in a TikTok video that she moved her family to Ireland several days before Trump’s second inauguration, on Jan. 15. In the video, she said she intended to seek dual citizenship due to her family’s Irish lineage.

Months later, on July 12, Trump posted (archived) on his Truth Social platform, “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. She is a Threat to Humanity, and should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”

(President Donald Trump/Truth Social)

In response, O’Donnell labeled Trump in an Instagram post (archived) as “a criminal con man sexual abusing liar out to harm our nation to serve himself.” O’Donnell also said in another post (archived), “I’m not yours to silence,” and added, “I never was.”

Then, on Sept. 3, Trump posted (archived) a doctored photo of O’Donnell, adding, “As previously mentioned, we are giving serious thought to taking away Rosie O’Donnell’s Citizenship. She is not a Great American and is, in my opinion, incapable of being so!”

(President Donald Trump/Truth Social)

Citing experts, The Associated Press, Reuters and The New York Times all reported a U.S. president cannot revoke the citizenship of a person born in the country. Fox News similarly published, “A president is not allowed to strip the citizenship of someone born in the United States under the Constitution. O’Donnell, who was born in New York, has her citizenship protected by the 14th Amendment.”

For further reading, a previous fact check examined the claim that a bill would allow Rubio to unilaterally deny or revoke passports to people who have criticized Israel.

For background, here is why we alert readers to rumors created by sources calling their output humorous or satirical.