Donald Trump took time out of a campaign rally in Kansas to praise Ted Nugent, a MAGA rocker who has boasted and sung about having sex with underage girls.
Nugent joined the 80-year-old president at a rally in Wichita on Monday night to show support for Republican Sen. Roger Marshall, who is trailing Democratic candidate Adam Hamilton in multiple polls with the Nov. 3 midterms just weeks away.
Toward the end of his speech, Trump told the crowd he was happy he had “got to watch” the 77-year-old rocker on the same stage the previous night while making no mention of the sordid history about the singer whose 1981 song “Jailbait” describes him wanting to commit statutory rape on a 13-year-old girl.
“He’s pretty good. But he’s been a friend of mine from the beginning. He’s a man that gets it. He’s a guy with common sense,” Trump said. “He’s smart as hell, actually. He plays the game. Like, you know, ‘Oh, let’s be country and all.’ But the truth is, he’s country, but he is one smart cookie, and he gets it and understands what’s happening, Ted Nugent.”
Allegations against Nugent have dogged the singer for years, but have never led to criminal charges.
In a 1998 documentary for VH1’s Behind the Music, Nugent admitted to having sex with multiple underage girls.
“I was addicted to girls. It was hopeless. It was beautiful,” he said.
Nugent even boasted that he had received the “stamp of approval” from the girls’ parents before having sex with them.
“I guess they figured better Ted Nugent than some drug-infested punk in high school,” he said.
Nugent was even more explicit in the vile lyrics to his song “Jailbait.”
“Well, I don’t care if you’re just 13. You look too good to be true. I just know that you’re probably clean. There’s one little thing I gotta do to you… It’s quite all right. I asked your momma,” Nugent sings.
“Wait a minute, officer; wait a minute, officer. Don’t put those handcuffs on me, what about her? Hey, I’ll share her with you.”
Grunge icon Courtney Love, the widow of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, has repeatedly alleged that she performed a sex act on Nugent when she was a child.
Love told The Howard Stern Show that she was “really young” and “didn’t have breasts yet” when the incident occurred backstage at a show. She later said she believed she was around 14 years old and had been part of a line of young girls waiting to engage in sexual acts with Nugent.
Nugent has previously said he does not remember the alleged incident with Love. He has also denied other allegations, including claims that he sought to become the legal guardian of 17-year-old Hawaiian girl Pele Massa while in a relationship with her in the late 1970s, when he was 30 years old.
Nugent has performed or spoken at several Trump rallies and campaign events over the years.
