Secret Service to interview Ted Nugent
(CBS News) A law enforcement official told CBS News on Wednesday that the Secret Service plans to interview musician Ted Nugent over incendiary comments that Nugent made about President Obama at a National Rifle Association conference.
The official did not say when the interview will take place. Nugent told Glenn Beck on Wednesday that he expected to meet with the Secret Service tomorrow.
Nugent, the longtime NRA member and outspoken conservative behind the songs "Cat Scratch Fever" and "Great White Buffalo," told the conference on Saturday that "if Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year."
"We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November," he said of the Obama administration, adding that if his listeners can't "clean house in this vile, evil, America-hating administration, I don't even know what you're made out of."
The Secret Service told Hotsheet that it is "conducting appropriate follow-up" in the wake of the comments.
"We recognize people's rights of free speech, but we also have a responsibility and a duty to determine their intent," said spokesman Brian Leary.
Nugent has endorsed presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Democratic national chairwoman, on Tuesday called on Romney to apologize. Wasserman Schultz deemed Nugent a "Romney surrogate," though Nugent is not formally tied to Romney's campaign.
"Mitt Romney surrogate Ted Nugent made offensive comments about President Obama and November's elections this weekend that are despicable, deplorable and completely beyond the pale," said Wasserman Schultz. "He called the Administration 'vile,' 'evil' and 'America-hating,' and said much worse. Yet what have we heard from Mitt Romney and the Republican Party, who should be outraged that someone representing them is using language like this to make a political point? Absolutely nothing."
Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul responded in a statement that did not specifically mention Nugent.
"Divisive language is offensive no matter what side of the political aisle it comes from. Mitt Romney believes everyone needs to be civil," she said.
Speaking to Beck on Wednesday, Nugent said, "The bottom line is I've never threatened anybody's life in my life."
"I don't waste breath threatening," he continued. "I just conduct myself as a dedicated 'We the people' activist because I've saluted too many flag draped coffins to not appreciate where the freedom comes from."
Nugent told Beck he would take the Secret Service investigation seriously and be as "polite and supportive as I possibly can be, which will be thoroughly."
On a different radio show on Tuesday, Nugent stood by his comments to the NRA and again denied making a threat.
"I will stand by my speech," he said on the Dana Loesch radio show. "It was 100 percent positive. It's about 'we the people' taking back our American dream from the corrupt monsters in the federal government under this administration and the communist czars [that Obama has] appointed."
Nugent added that he is like "a black Jew at a Nazi-Klan rally."
"There are some power abusing corrupt monsters in our government that despise me because I have the audacity to speak the truth," he said.
In the 2008 campaign cycle, Nugent attacked then-candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in an onstage rant while holding a pair of machine guns.
"Obama, he's a piece of s***. I told him to suck on my machine gun," he said, adding: "Hey Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless b****."