TEL AVIV – Jewish actor and comedian Roseanne Barr said Sunday that she personally thanked President Donald Trump for moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and added that she wanted to move to the Jewish state.
In a phone call with Trump, Barr thanked the president on behalf of her mother.
“I said, ‘Mr. President, on behalf of my mother, I want to thank you … for moving the embassy to Jerusalem. Thank you so much,'” Barr said at the Jerusalem Post‘s annual conference in New York. “And he said, ‘Well, you know a lot of presidents have promised it, but I wanted to get it done.'”
“I think it’s the first step to peace in the world, I really do,” added Barr.
The relocated embassy will be inaugurated next month in the presence of a U.S. delegation comprising some 250 administration officials and Jewish leaders.
Barr said she wanted to move to Israel, adding that she would love to run for prime minister.
“I want to move to Israel and run for prime minister,” she said. “I do have that fantasy. If God calls me, I’ll go.”
Later, she backtracked on her remarks about a future in politics. Still, she said, she dreamed of “making aliya,” or immigrating to the Jewish state.
“I’m 65 years old and I’m running out of time to do what I always dreamed of doing [which] was to be living there and be able to study the things that excite me,” she said. “I still have the fantasy of being an old Jewish lady living in the Jewish homeland, so someday I will do it.”
Trump had initiated the phone call with Barr to congratulate her on the smash-hit revival of her 1980s sitcom Roseanne, in which Barr’s character is an ardent Trump supporter.
“He said ‘Congratulations on the ratings.’ He’s really into ratings, like I am,” said Barr.
“I didn’t have Roseanne the character become a Trump supporter because I am,” she continued. “I had her become a Trump supporter because she’s a working class person and it is the working class that elected Donald Trump. So, in being true to that little demographic, I had to do it.”
“Besides, I just wanted someone to do it and none of the other actors – they were like, ‘No way,'” Barr added.