Mark Ruffalo issues strong rebuke to Ellen Degeneres after talk show host defends George W Bush friendship

Avengers star said we could 'not even begin' to talk about kindness until Bush had been 'brought to justice' over the Iraq War

Mark Ruffalo has issued a rebuke to Ellen DeGeneres after she defended her friendship with George W Bush.

The talk show host was responding to criticism over a photo of her sitting and laughing with the former Republican president at a Dallas Cowboys game.

Many questioned why DeGeneres, a gay Hollywood liberal, would want to associate with a president who spent a considerable amount of time in the Oval Office passing and upholding anti-LGBT policies.

DeGeneres issued her response on her chat show, where she claimed that she and Bush were “friends” with “different beliefs”.

“When I say be kind to one another, I don’t mean only the people that think the same way that you do. I mean be kind to everyone,” she said.

Actors Reese Witherspoon and Kristen Bell received their own backlash on social media after both showed support for DeGeneres.

Ruffalo, however, tweeted that “we can’t even begin to talk about kindness” until Bush was “brought to justice for the crimes of the Iraq War“.

“Until George W Bush is brought to to justice for the crimes of the Iraq War (including American-lead [sic] torture, Iraqi deaths and displacement, and the deep scars – emotional and otherwise – inflicted on our military that served his folly), we can’t even begin to talk about kindness,” he wrote.

The Avengers star linked to a Vanity Fair article that broke down many of the reasons behind the outrage directed at DeGeneres, and looked at the limits of “unconditional kindness”.