President Obama recently pardoned celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain for his friendship with former rocker Ted Nugent.
Bourdain tells Confidenti that when he met up with Obama in Viet Nam two weeks ago, he came clean about his affection for the Motor City Madman and the President was cool with it.
“I said, ‘Look … despite the fact that Ted Nugent and I disagree on absolutely everything, and about 98% of what comes out of his mouth is deeply offensive to me, it is a point of pride for me that I enjoy spending time with Ted Nugent,” Bourdain told sponsors at Mario Batali’s Red Supper benefit dinner in Lower Manhattan.
Bourdain says that he explained to the President that “We have barbecue in common and a few other things.”
According to the celebrity chef, the President agreed that variety is the spice of life. “He said ‘absolutely,’” according to Bourdain. “Considering the things that Ted Nugent has said about him, which are shameful and horrible, but I admire that.”
Nugent, a devout NRA member who’s been living off the 1977 hit “Cat Scratch Fever” for far too long, referred to the President as a “chimp-ss punk” in a rabid Facebook post that also suggested Obama should be hanged for treason earlier this year. Nugent has also called the President a “subhuman mongrel” and referred to him as a “chimpanzee” in past rants that have gotten him more radio air time than his music probably ever could.
Bourdain said that Nugent isn’t the only controversial person he’d have over for dinner. If Donald Trump walked into an eatery he owned, The Donald would leave well-fed. “I would not refuse service,” Bourdain said. “He’s a fellow New Yorker for better or worse.”
In a speech billed as “Ted Nugent: 2016 Election Do or Die for America and Freedom” at the NRA’s annual meeting at Freedom Hall in Louisville, Kentucky, the NRA board member who was just re-elected to another 3-year term last week, championed presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump as the perfect man to “stop the Islamification of America” and protect gun owners.
Ted Nugent has sure changed from the 70’s, but that’s the very thing I love about America – we are free to be “individuals”, no country quite like this one……