Art Garfunkel, the 84-year-old voice behind some of the most beloved songs in American musical history, has looked at what this country has become and said, essentially, hard pass. In an interview with The Guardian, he said he is thinking of leaving the United States, citing climate change, global hunger, and the small matter of the American military seizing control of a sovereign nation.
"Are Those the New Rules?"
The quote that's going to live rent-free in your head is this one, from The Guardian piece that originally ran September 4. "When Donald Trump took over Venezuela, are those the new rules?" Garfunkel asked. "Just take over a country and run it?"
That is a genuinely good question. For context: Trump launched a military operation that resulted in the capture of then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who is currently sitting in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, facing federal charges. The United States. Captured. Another country's president. And yes, we are apparently just doing that now.
Garfunkel did not mince words about where he stands. "I don't like America's position at all," he told The Guardian. "I'm not aboard, and I'm thinking of leaving the country, frankly." He also raised climate change and global hunger as reasons for his disillusionment, noting, "It's real that the planet is getting warmer, that the water's rising, that so many people are starving."
He added, with the weary pragmatism of a man who has been watching American politics for eight decades: "Trump won't last forever, so we've got to hope."
The Growing List of People Who Have Decided Elsewhere Sounds Nice
Garfunkel is not alone in this particular existential calculation. As Page Six reports, Rosie O'Donnell actually followed through and moved to Ireland after Trump's 2024 election victory, making her something of a unicorn in the celebrity-exodus genre. Most of them threaten and then quietly unpack their bags. O'Donnell did not.
She returned briefly in August to guest-host "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" and, on the August 17 episode, referred to Trump as "Mango Mussolini" before heading back across the Atlantic. "I read that Project 2025 and said, 'Got to get myself out of here,'" she explained, adding that Ireland is "a place where people are driven to drink regardless of who's running their country." Solid reasoning.
Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi made their UK stay permanent after the 2024 election. Per the BBC in 2025, DeGeneres described waking up in Britain to texts full of crying emojis and deciding, "We're staying here." Director James Cameron, who has long been working toward New Zealand citizenship, has been vocal in his criticism of Trump as that move approaches.
The Part Where a Democratic Strategist Says the Quiet Part Out Loud
Democratic strategist Kaivan Shroff offered what might be the most clear-eyed read of this whole story to Fox News Digital. "Celebrity threats to leave the country are usually pretty easy to roll your eyes at," he said. "Most never actually do. But Garfunkel is 84 years old and has spent more than six decades as one of the most recognizable figures in American music, so this doesn't exactly read like somebody trying to launch a political brand."
That is a sharp point. There is a meaningful difference between a 35-year-old actor rage-tweeting about moving to Canada and an 84-year-old man who was born in New York City, spent his entire life here, and is now telling a British newspaper he does not recognize his country anymore.
Shroff pushed further. "He's looking at the country he has lived in his entire life and saying, essentially, 'I don't recognize our role in the world anymore.'" He acknowledged Garfunkel's comments are more political statement than firm relocation plan, but added: "That kind of unease is hardly unique to Art Garfunkel."
What Is Actually Happening in Venezuela
It is worth stepping back for a second to let the Venezuela situation land properly, because the news cycle has a way of normalizing things that should not be normalized. The United States conducted a military operation that removed a sitting foreign head of state from power. Nicolás Maduro, whatever you think of him, was the leader of a country. He is now in a Brooklyn detention facility awaiting trial on American federal charges.
Garfunkel's question, "are those the new rules?" is not rhetorical hand-wringing from a celebrity who reads too many op-eds. It is a reasonable question about what American foreign policy actually means now, what international law means now, and what precedent gets set when the most powerful military on earth decides a neighboring government needs to go and simply goes and gets it.
The answer, apparently, is: yes, those are the new rules. We will see how other countries feel about that framework as it develops.
The Dingo Take
You are supposed to hear "Art Garfunkel is thinking about leaving the country" and roll your eyes and move on with your day. That is the trained reflex at this point. Celebrities say this. They almost never do it. It is a genre of performance. Fine.
But here is what actually cuts through the noise: this is a man born in Forest Hills, Queens, who built one of the most distinctly American careers in the history of popular music, and he is 84 years old and genuinely asking whether the country he has lived in his entire life still operates by recognizable rules. He is not angling for a Netflix deal. He is not building a Substack brand. He sang "Bridge Over Troubled Water" in 1970. He is, by any measure, done proving himself. And he is disturbed.
The Venezuela thing is what should be keeping everyone up at night, celebrity or not. The United States military captured another country's president and brought him to Brooklyn. That happened. Art Garfunkel noticed. The question worth sitting with is not whether he will actually move, it is why more people are not asking the same question he is asking: when the rules changed this dramatically, did anyone vote on that?
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