Story highlights Schilling, a vocal Donald Trump supporter, is mulling a 2018 Senate bid in Massachusetts

He also called Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton a "criminal"

Washington (CNN) Curt Schilling threw CNN's Jake Tapper a curveball Friday when he asked why many Jews support the Democratic Party.

The legendary Boston Red Sox pitcher's comments on "The Lead" seemed to come out of left field after Tapper had been asking Schilling about his controversial social media posts about transgender Americans and Muslims.

"I would like to ask you something as a person who is practicing the Jewish faith and has since you were young," began Schilling, a vocal Donald Trump supporter who is mulling a 2018 Senate bid in Massachusetts.

"I don't understand -- and this is, maybe this is the amateur, non-politician in me -- I don't understand how people of Jewish faith can back the Democratic Party, which over the last 50 years has been so clearly anti-Israel, so clearly anti-Jewish Israel," Schilling continued. "I don't know what else would need to be done, said or happen for people to understand that they don't -- the Democratic Party is aligned for Israel only because we have agreements in place to make them have to be."

Tapper responded by telling Schilling he doesn't speak for Jews nor does he support either the Democratic or Republican parties, but guessed that perhaps "one of the reasons many Jews are Democrats has more to do with Democrats' support for social welfare programs and that sort of thing than it does for Israel."

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