From DREAMers to victims of gun violence, Democrats have a long list of guests joining them for this year’s State of the Union address.
And Republicans have Ted Nugent.
At least Texas Republican Rep. Steve Stockman does, and thanks to Nugent’s history of incendiary language on everything from guns to race and women’s rights, Nugent is the one getting the headlines.
That’ s because just ten months ago he told a crowd of NRA supporters, “If Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year. If you can’t go home and get everybody in your lives to clean house in this vile, evil, America-hating administration, I don’t even know what you’re made out of.”
The comments prompted the Secret Service to interview Nugent in order to make sure he wasn’t a threat to the president. They ultimately cleared him.
Nugent insists he’ll remain respectful, according to an interview with radio host Mike Broomhead on Monday, so it appears we won’t have a repeat of the “You lie!” outburst we saw from South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson in 2009. “I will remain respectful to the office of the presidency and the event itself, but I will not buy the scam,” he said.
But Nugent, an NRA board member, will likely unleash his typical strong rhetoric afterwards, telling Broomhead he plans to “dominate” the “media orgy” after the address. He also said he’s attending “knowing that everything President Obama ever said has been a masterful scam—a masterful smoke-and-mirrors deceit, fraud, scam from hell.”
Nugent told the New York Times he will “demilitarize” for the event. “I will go in at least 20 pounds lighter than I normally walk,” he said. “I will be going in sans the hardware store on my belt. I live a well-armed life, and I’ve got to demilitarize before I go.”
Stockman says he invited Nugent “because he is a supporter of the Second Amendment and American values.”
Stockman is no stranger to extreme rhetoric himself, having threatened to impeach the president over gun control measures in January.
Morgan Whitaker