Rosie O'Donnell will guest host ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live the week of 17 August 2026, and she is already teasing a musical number aimed squarely at Donald Trump.

O'Donnell revealed on the On with Kara Swisher podcast that she has written what she calls a "love song" for the president, with lyrics including: "Hello, Donny / I know you're watching, Donny / it's me, Rosie, showing up on ABC" and "you've got a crush, Donny / it's too much / I hear you're leaving Melania for me" (Deadline, 5 August 2026). She also told Trump directly through the podcast: "I know you're watching."

ABC has already drawn one line. The network told O'Donnell she cannot perform "If He Only Had a Brain," her Trump-themed parody of the song from The Wizard of Oz, during her guest-hosting stint (LateNighter, 4 August 2026; BroadwayWorld, 4 August 2026). O'Donnell debuted the parody after Trump targeted her at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner and performed a version of it during her one-woman show Common Knowledge in July (Instagram, 6 July 2026; Instagram, 22 July 2026).

The FCC looms over the whole booking. Chairman Brendan Carr has used the commission's regulatory power against ABC in what the network has called an "ongoing retaliation campaign" over its coverage of Trump (Deadline, 5 August 2026). ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2025 shortly after Carr issued the network a warning. Carr also went after The View — the daytime panel show where O'Donnell once co-hosted (Deadline, 5 August 2026).

Kimmel himself has spoken out. In January 2026 he said the FCC is "coming for us again" and accused Carr of "reinterpreting long agreed-upon rules to stifle us" (People, 23 January 2026).

O'Donnell, a 12-time Emmy winner with a public feud against Trump stretching back years, is not backing down. On the Swisher podcast she said of the FCC: "I don't listen to them. I don't pay any heed to them" (Deadline, 5 August 2026).

She is one of seven summer guest hosts Kimmel announced in June 2026, alongside Tiffany Haddish, Anthony Anderson, Ike Barinholtz, Colman Domingo, Jelly Roll and Matt Damon (Deadline, 5 August 2026).

What makes the booking unusual is the collision it sets up. A network under active FCC pressure is handing a week of late-night television to a host who is daring the commission on air to stop her. The parody is blocked. The "love song" is not.