Rosie O’Donnell, the longtime comedian and outspoken critic of President Donald J. Trump, reportedly apologized Sunday after falsely claiming the Minneapolis school shooter was a supporter of the president.
“I did not do my due diligence before I made that emotional statement, and I said things about the shooter that were incorrect,” O’Donnell said in a video posted online. “I assumed, like most shooters, they followed a standard MO and had standard, you know, feelings of… you know, NRA-loving kind of gun people.”
“Anyway, the truth is I messed up, and when you mess up, you fess up,” she added. “I’m sorry. This is my apology video and I hope it’s enough.”
Her apology followed days of criticism after she quickly blamed supporters of Mr. Trump and conservatives for the violence at a Minneapolis Catholic school last week.
Two children were killed and 18 others, most of them children, were wounded when a shooter opened fire during Mass. In her initial comments last Thursday, O’Donnell told her followers: “What do you know? It was a white guy, Republican, MAGA person. What do you know? White supremacists.”
That claim proved false. FBI Director Kash Patel later said the shooter, 23-year-old Robin Westman, had expressed anti-religious sentiments and made threats against Mr. Trump.
Patel described the attack as an act of “domestic terrorism.” Federal officials referred to Westman as transgender. Westman died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound following the attack.
Parents of children who survived the incident have urged lawmakers to pursue stricter gun laws in response to the killings.
O’Donnell, who has a long history of criticizing Mr. Trump, has made herself a central figure in the nation’s polarized cultural debates.
Following the president’s return to office, she left the United States altogether, declaring that she would only return when “it’s safe” and when all Americans had “equal rights.”
Mr. Trump responded forcefully, threatening to revoke her citizenship and describing her as a “threat to humanity.”
The episode highlights the dangers of politicizing national tragedies before facts are established. O’Donnell’s instinct to immediately blame conservatives reflected a broader pattern on the left of rushing to link mass violence with Trump supporters, gun owners, or white supremacists, regardless of the evidence. In this case, her assumptions were flatly wrong.
Even in her apology, O’Donnell framed her misstatement as the result of expectations rather than recklessness. She suggested she had simply followed a “standard MO” that she assumed applied to shooters: “NRA-loving kind of gun people.”
Critics argue her explanation reveals a deeper bias. By defaulting to a narrative about Trump voters and gun rights advocates, O’Donnell inadvertently underscored the prejudices that often dominate cultural commentary in progressive circles.
Her walk-back, though direct, may do little to repair the damage. At a time when public trust in institutions and media voices is already low, even casual assumptions made by celebrities can further inflame division.
For conservatives, O’Donnell’s apology was less a sign of accountability than proof of how reflexively the left casts blame on political opponents.
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