Jon Cryer defends 'Two and a Half Men' work after Rep. Matt Gaetz says 'Charlie Sheen carried' the show

Jon Cryer is defending his work on Two and a Half Men after sparring on Twitter with Rep. Matt Gaetz.

Cryer, who frequently tweets about politics and his disdain for the Trump White House, ruffled Gaetz’s feathers with a post announcing he’d made a campaign contribution to Phil Ehr, the man running against him. In his tweet, the actor accused the Florida Republican, and prominent Trump ally, of inviting “a white supremacist to the State of the Union, [attempting] to intimidate a federal witness and [endorsing] a sociopathic bigot who applauded the deaths of migrants for Congress.”

The congressman responded to Cryer’s attack with a dig at one of the star’s most famous roles: playing Charlie Sheen’s brother Alan on the long-running CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men. The comedy, which aired from 2003 to 2015, also starred Angus T. Jones as Alan’s son Jake, with Ashton Kutcher joining the show in 2011 following Sheen’s departure amid his rehabilitation for drug abuse and conflicts with showrunners.

“Charlie Sheen totally carried Two and a Half Men,” Gaetz shot back, much to the delight of his supporters.

Cryer — who has been vocal about his tumultuous time with Sheen, with whom he also starred in the 1991 comedy Hot Shots! — didn’t back down, pointing out that he’d gone on to win an Emmy, in 2012, after Sheen had left the show. It was the Pretty in Pink actor’s second Emmy win for the role, as he’d previously picked up a trophy in 2009 in the Outstanding Supporting Actor category.

Cryer’s rebuttal got praise from fellow celebrities (and Trump critics) like Mark Hamill and Richard Marx. Sheen, meanwhile, has yet to publicly comment.

It’s not the first time Cryer and Sheen’s relationship has come up in politics. In 2016, the former compared his co-star to then-candidate Donald Trump.

“I worked with a guy who — also — whenever he said whatever came to the top of his head, people loved it!” Cryer said during an appearance on The Real. “And they loved it even more when he said horrible things.”

He added, “I don’t want people to pick the president based on entertainment value.”

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