Ashton Kutcher Gave An Impassioned Speech To Congress About Ending Modern Slavery

As if real life wasn’t odd enough already, what with Russia fearing that the U.S. president is maybe, possibly getting impeached any month now, That ’70s Show star Ashton Kutcher spoke in front of Congress today, where he blew a kiss to John McCain, who lost the presidency to Barack Obama, who Donald Trump once suggested should be — you guessed it — impeached.

Time is a flat, weird circle.

Ahead of Shine a Light on Slavery Day, which was created by the End It Movement to raise awareness for the millions of people who are trapped in slavery across the globe, Kutcher testified at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing titled “Ending Modern Slavery: Building on Success.” (He was joined by Humans Rights First CEO Elisa Massimino.) The actor is the co-founder of Thorn, an organization that uses “technology to combat predatory behavior, rescue victims, and protect vulnerable children.”

In a statement before the hearing, Kutcher said, “For years now, Thorn has been committed to building tech tools to combat child sexual exploitation and facilitating collaborations across [the] tech industry to disrupt these crimes. We have no intention of stopping until we win this battle.”

It’s easy to bag on Kutcher, who will always be known as the Dude, Where’s My Car? and Punk’d guy. He evan began his speech by noting, “This is the point where Internet trolls tell me to stick to my day job… Let me tell you about my day job.” But he’s doing some incredible work with Thorn, and deserves plaudits for the devastating testimony he gave today. (There’s a particularly harrowing section where he discusses watching a child the same age as his being raped by an adult.) You can watch the entire thing below.

×