Actor Ellen Page called out the Trump administration Friday during an appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, saying it fostered a climate of hate in the US — specifically for Americans who identify as LGBT.
Page, who stars in the upcoming Netflix series The Umbrella Academy, addressed the attack on actor Jussie Smollett, who is gay. Smollett told police he was assaulted Monday by two men. The Empire actor said they yelled "This is MAGA country" and put a rope around his neck.
"It's absurd," said Page, who was upset about people debating whether or not to classify Smollett's purported assault as a hate crime. "The [expletive] isn't a debate." Police said they were treating the case as a possible hate crime "given the severity of the allegations."
Page said she was "fired up," and added that it was "impossible to not to feel this way right now with the president and the vice president, Mike Pence, who, like, wishes I couldn't be married, let's just be clear."
.@EllenPage is fed up with leaders who promote hatred and intolerance. #LSSC
"The vice president of America wishes I didn't have the love with my wife," said Page, who recently celebrated one year of marriage with her partner, Emma Portner.
"He wanted to ban that in Indiana. He believes in conversion therapy," she said of Pence.
"He has hurt LGBTQ people so badly as the governor of Indiana."
Pence has opposed same-sex marriage in past, and once supported a proposal to reauthorize the Ryan White CARE Act only to "ensure that federal dollars were no longer being given to organizations that celebrate and encourage the types of behaviors that facilitate the spreading of the HIV virus."
Some have taken this to mean that the former governor supports conversion therapy, a claim he has denied.
Page urged people to "connect the dots" with the rise in crimes against marginalized people in the US to the views often espoused by the current administration.
"If you are in a position of power and you hate people and you want to cause suffering to them, you go through the trouble, you spend your career trying to cause suffering, what do you think is going to happen?" she said.
"Kids are going to be abused and they're going to kill themselves," Page said, "and people are going to be beaten on the street."
The actor finished her speech by acknowledging her privilege as someone who has traveled the world and met marginalized people from all walks of life.
"I am lucky to have this time and the privilege to say this," Page said.
"This needs to fucking stop."
Watch Page's complete interview with Colbert below:
