Noah Wyle arrested during Medicaid-cuts protest in D.C.

Actor Noah Wyle followed in George Clooney’s footsteps Monday, becoming another “ER” alum to hit Washington, D.C., for a political protest, only to leave in handcuffs, arrested.

Wyle, 40, showed up to Capitol Hill on Monday with ADAPT, a grass-roots organization seeking to stop cuts in Medicaid. The “Falling Skies” actor was arrested with some 100 others who were fighting against budget cuts that the group says would reduce in-home medical services for the elderly and disabled, which in some cases head off the need for full-on nursing-home care.

“As soon as everybody saw me being led away, they let up a big whooping cheer, which made me feel really good,” Wyle said while waiting to be processed in the basement of the building where the protest took place.

Though he’d warned his ex-wife and young kids that he could be arrested and thought they’d be “proud of the old man right now,” he described his first arrest as “slightly surreal.”
In mid-March, Clooney was arrested with dad Nick in front of the Sudanese embassy, where the men were asking for an end to violence in the country’s southern region.

“Let George focus on the international,” Wyle said of his former costar. “I’ll deal with the small domestic issues.”

That said, Wyle’s other activist affiliations include serving as a spokesman for World Wide Fund for Nature’s campaign to preserve polar bears in the face of climate change. He was also the “celebrity fun runner” for ADAPT’s 7th Annual Fun Run for Disability Rights, held Sunday in D.C.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.