National Rifle Association board member Ted Nugent heaped praise on Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in a Newsmax TV interview published the same day Nugent wrote on Facebook that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama “should be tried for treason & hung.”
During an interview posted online by Newsmax TV on January 20, Nugent expressed admiration for Trump, and said a lot of people have “celebrated” that “Donald Trump is as close to Ted Nugent as you are going to get in politics.” Nugent added, “I like Donald Trump because he is bold and he is treating the culture war as the culture war that it is.”
While declining to make an endorsement until the GOP nominee is determined, Nugent offered praise for other GOP candidates, including saying his “dream would be if Ted Cruz became president tonight.”
He said of the Republican field, “None of them are perfect, but compared to the Saul Alinsky Mao Zedong boogie over there on the left and the Democrat gaggle, I mean my god, I got a one-legged landscaper that would make a better president than either Bernie or Hillary or whoever that other guy is.”
Nugent's interview aired the same day the NRA board member called for the deaths of Obama and Clinton in a Facebook post. Apparently reacting to 13 Hours, a Michael Bay film about the 2012 Benghazi, Libya, terror attacks, Nugent wrote, “What sort of chimpass punk would deny security, turn down 61 requests for security, then tell US forces to STAND DOWN when they were ready to kickass on the allapukes & save American lives! Obama & Clinton, thats who. They should be tried for treason & hung.”
From the January 20 broadcast of Newsmax TV's Steve Malzberg Show:
NUGENT: Only the guilty need to feel guilty, because I really admire Donald Trump, I really admire Ted Cruz.
MALZBERG: That's what I want to ask, Ted, that's where I want to go next, who do you like and why on the Republican side?
NUGENT: Well, I set some records again recently on Facebook, I had like 33.6 million Facebookers because I dared to proclaim the self-evident truth and logic and common sense, how dare I? I think that's against the law now, but I do it anyway. And what a lot of people of those 33 million Facebookers have celebrated is that Donald Trump is as close to Ted Nugent as you are going to get in politics. So I like Donald Trump because he is bold and he is treating the culture war as the culture war that it is. Now my dream would be if Ted Cruz became president tonight. I really admire Ted Cruz. On many levels, I admire Marco Rubio. None of them are perfect, but compared to the Saul Alinsky Mao Zedong boogie over there on the left and the Democrat gaggle, I mean my god, I got a one-legged landscaper that would make a better president than either Bernie or Hillary or whoever that other guy is.
MALZBERG: But so you say you'd be thrilled if Cruz became president tomorrow, but you are supporting Trump, not Cruz, correct?
NUGENT: No, I'm not supporting anybody until they are nominated. I believe that as I write all the time, I would welcome people to come to my Facebook I write four or five times a day in between duck plucking and back-strapping.