Ron Perlman has slammed Ted Cruz’s line of questioning for Ketanji Brown Jackson at one of the Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
The Texas senator posed a question to Ms Brown Jackson on critical race theory, a buzzword for the country’s conservatives, at Tuesday’s hearing by asking if she believed babies were racist.
He specifically pointed to a book called Antiracist Baby by Dr Ibram Kendi and highlighted an illustration depicting a child with a header that said one should “confess when being racist”.
Soon after the hearing, Perlman hit out at Mr Cruz.
“Hi Ted, Ron here,” the actor said in a video posted on Twitter.
“Listen, I know how tempting it is to appeal to the real lowest form of humanity here in the United States, the bottom feeders, people who pride themselves on hatred and un-education and inability to read and inability to understand the difference between true patriotism and the bulls*** you’re selling.
“I know how tempting it is to play to those people,” he added. “Because at least you have a base, but Jesus Christ Ted, for somebody with a really, really small d***, you get to be a bigger p***k every f****** day. Go f*** yourself.”
Mr Cruz had asked Judge Jackson, Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, whether the theory was taught in K-12 schools and brought up how she is on the board of trustees of Georgetown Day School, a private school in Washington DC that many children of the city’s elite attend.
Ms Brown Jackson had taken a long pause before replying to Mr Cruz: “Senator… I do not believe that any child should be made to feel as though they are racist or as though they are not valued or that they are less than, that they are victims, that they are oppressors. I don’t believe in any of that.”
“Georgetown Day School, just like the religious schools that Justice [Amy Coney] Barrett was on the board of, is a private school,” she said.
Cruz then asked whether Jackson could admit the school taught critical race theory.
“I don’t know because the board does not control the curriculum, the board does not focus on that,” Jackson replied. “That’s not what we do as board members. So I’m actually not sure.”
Access unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows with Amazon Prime Video Sign up now for a 30-day free trial
Apart from Mr Cruz, Perlman also attacked Arkansas senator Tom Cotton by calling him “a f****** white slaver piece of s***”.
Mr Cotton had repeatedly asked Ms Brown Jackson during Tuesday’s hearing whether sentences in general should be stronger for fentanyl traffickers and for child sex image offenders.
Republicans in the Senate have sought to portray the judge as “soft” on all manner of crime, including drugs and sexual offences.
“Playback that line of questioning and tell me that wasn’t the most racist thing I’ve seen since Jefferson f****** Davis. F*** you,” Perlman added.
Follow the latest updates about Jackson’s hearing in our live blog here.
