Rockstar and conservative activist Ted Nugent has promised to tone down his hateful political rhetoric on the heels of accused gunman James T. Hodgkinson opening fire on the GOP congressional baseball team in Alexandria, Virginia on Wednesday. Some lawmakers and media members have blamed hateful political rhetoric for the incident.
“I’m not going to engage in that kind of hateful rhetoric anymore,” Nugent said Thursday on “Curtis & Eboni,” a political talk show on WABC Radio in New York.
Curtis Silwa and Fox News host Eboni K. Williams grilled Nugent on “hateful” rhetoric, which the rock star is no stranger to. Nugent has made threats against former President Obama several times in the past, including telling Obama to “suck on my machine gun.” He also made inflammatory remarks about Hillary Clinton, calling her a “devilbitch” who “hates everything good about America.”
Nugent said the subject has reached a critical stage and said he “re-evaluated his approach” to the tough-guy language he learned growing up as a “street fighter” in Detroit.
“I just can’t use those harsh terms,” Nugent said. “I cannot and I will not and I encourage even my friends slash enemy on the left in the Democrat, liberal world that we have got to be civil to each other.”
Nugent said the “whole world is watching America” and we have to be “more respectful to the other side.” The Motor City Mad Man said he’s going to “back down” and when things get hateful, he will go away.
He even complimented Williams, who is left-leaning Independent with a show on Fox News, on her “civil discourse.”
Twitter recently went bananas when Nugent visited President Trump at the White House because of his history of suggesting violence against Obama, but he said he’s changed the way he will communicate going forward.
“When I made those wild-ass comments, on stage, about then-Senator Hillary Clinton and then-senator Barack Obama, I don’t know if you can grasp the degree of adrenalin and intensity and sheer over-the-top animal spirit and attitude that I live on stage,” he said. “I’ve got to take that deep breath.”
Nugent promised to “void anything that can be interpreted as condoning or referencing violence” going forward.
Check out the audio below:
LISTEN: Ted Nugent tells @CurtisSliwa & @EboniKWilliams that it's time to tone down rhetoric @curtisandeboni https://t.co/KmYmg1XqGr
— TalkRadio 77 WABC (@77WABCradio) June 15, 2017