Alan Cumming Blasts Trump's "Persecution Against the LGBT Community"

Tony-winning actor Alan Cumming, who is bisexual and set to play network television's first gay lead character in an hour-long drama on CBS's Instinct, spoke out against the Trump administration for endangering the lives of LGBT people, Deadline reported.

"I applaud everyone at CBS for having the courage to put that (Intstinct) on, in the climate that might not be the best time to do it," Cumming said at the show's Television Critics Association's (TCA) winter press tour. "The President is actively condoning--by his silence--violence, and persecution against the LGBT community," Cumming said.

Cumming, who was nominated for an Emmy for his role as political strategist Eli Gold on The Good Wife, stars on Instinct as Dr. Dylan Reinhart, a former CIA operative turned professor and writer who's lured back into investigating crimes to help the NYPD track a serial killer. The character also happens to be gay and in a happy, healthy marriage to another man.

Regarding the appearance of TV's first gay lead character in a network drama in the time of Trump, Cumming said it was one of the reasons he was drawn to the series that is based on an upcoming James Patterson book, according to Deadline. Because of the current political climate, Cumming said it was "all that more important we should have a character with a healthy same-sex marriage."

Answering a question about why the "n" in the Instinct logo is backwards, Cumming said, "It's secret code to say 'No' to Trump."

Instinct premieres on CBS on March 11.