Ted Nugent talks with Off The Record host Tim Skubick on Oct. 3, 2018.(Photo: Jonathan Oosting)
East Lansing — Conservative rocker Ted Nugent on Wednesday touted Michigan Republican candidates in a rollicking television interview while defending, denying or attempting to clarify his long history of controversial comments.
Nugent said he did not regret calling Democratic U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein of California a “worthless whore.” He also explained that when he called Parkland, Florida, school shooting survivors "soulless," his comment were aimed at two of the teens who had suggested the National Rifle Association was complicit in the fatal attack that killed 17.
Feinstein, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who last week grilled U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh over sexual assault allegations, is a “nasty person,” Nugent said during a taping of “Off the Record” on WKAR-TV. “Terrible person.”
Now living in Texas, the 70-year-old Detroit native has family in Michigan, hunts here and remains active in state politics. Nugent has endorsed gubernatorial hopeful Bill Schuette, with whom he campaigned last month in northern Michigan, and is backing GOP attorney general nominee Tom Leonard and U.S. Senate candidate John James.
“We need to do here in Michigan with Bill Schuette, Tom Leonard and John James and so many great, great candidates what we did for Donald Trump, and that is get out the sh—kicker vote,” Nugent told reporters after the television segment, citing blue-collar union workers who helped propel the president to a narrow Michigan win in 2016.
Democrats have railed on Schuette and other Republicans for campaigning with Nugent, pointing to controversial comments he's made that have been called misogynistic, anti-Semitic[1] and racist. Party Chairman Brandon Dillon last month called Nugent a “predator,” citing comments he made about young girls in a 1998 VH1 documentary.
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