Rosie O'Donnell Says ABC Blocked Her Donald Trump Satirical Song From 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!'

Rosie O’Donnell is preparing to guest-host Jimmy Kimmel Live!, but one Trump joke apparently will not make it to air.

During an appearance on the “On with Kara Swisher” podcast, O’Donnell said she had hoped to perform “If He Only Had a Brain,” her Trump-themed rewrite of “If I Only Had a Brain” from The Wizard of Oz. Instead, she said she was told the show could not get permission to use the tune.

“The song that I sang in my show — ‘If He Only Had a Brain’ — I wanted to do that on Kimmel, but they just told me I can’t,” O’Donnell said.

She added that the decision did not come from Kimmel himself. “It’s not Jimmy,” she said.

According to O’Donnell, the explanation she received was that the show “couldn’t get permission for the parody because it’s political content.”

When Swisher asked her to sing part of it on the podcast, O’Donnell performed the opening verse.

“His approval rate is 30. His diaper’s always dirty. I think the guy’s insane. Da, da, da, da, da, da. He ain’t no stable genius. Got a teeny, tiny p----, and he doesn’t have a brain,” she sang.

O’Donnell first shared a version of the song on TikTok in late July after watching President Donald Trump’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner speech. The full song also reportedly references the Reflecting Pool, Vladimir Putin and Trump appearing to fall asleep during meetings.

Attorney and law instructor Danny Karon said several issues can make networks wary of political parodies.

“A network’s decision to block a political parody can stem from concerns about copyright infringement, defamation, or broadcast standards,” Karon said. “But these days, the concerns often involve whether the likely political controversy the segment will cause outweighs its comedic value.”

Copyright law draws a distinction between parody and satire. The Supreme Court’s 1994 Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music decision distinguished parody that comments on the original work from satire that borrows a work to comment on something else.

Because O’Donnell’s song targets Trump rather than The Wizard of Oz, a network clearance department could view it as riskier without explicit permission from the rights holder.

O’Donnell currently performs the song in her Off-Broadway one-woman show Common Knowledge, running at New York’s Daryl Roth Theatre through August 8. She is scheduled to guest-host Jimmy Kimmel Live! the week of August 17.

Karon said politically charged material now receives extra scrutiny.

“Networks evaluate politically charged content more carefully than other content, especially where it concerns the president, and cancellations aren’t unusual,” he explained. “What’s unusual is the public learning about the cancellation, which can spawn discussions of censorship and can have a chilling effect on performers and writers.”