Image by Twitter

By Josh Nathan-Kazis April 21, 2017

Rock musician Ted Nugent, whose anti-Semitic Facebook post last year drew widespread criticism, visited the White House Wednesday night as a guest of President Donald Trump, along with former Alaska governor Sarah Palin and singer Kid Rock.

Photographs of the group’s White House visit appeared on Twitter on Thursday morning. In one shot, the three posed with Trump in the Oval office. In another, they mocked a portrait of Hillary Clinton.

Nugent has for years faced charges of racism and anti-Semitism. In 2016, Nugent posted an anti-Semitic image on Facebook suggesting that Jews are behind gun control efforts.

Antisemitism Notebook

Your weekly guide through the news and the noise of how rising antisemitism and disputes over how to address it are shaping American Jewish life.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

“Know these punks,” Nugent wrote, below an image of prominent liberal Jews, each with an Israeli flag on their faces. Nugent at first defended his post, before eventually apologizing.

In 2014, Nugent compared Jewish film producer Harvey Weinstein to Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propagandist.

Nugent has also called President Barack Obama a “sub-human mongrel”, and Hillary Clinton a “devilbitch”, among other things.

Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at nathankazis@forward.com or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

This year, we have stood together in strength and sorrow. Our Forward team has worked around the clock to help you find clarity amid the chaos.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$36 $500

$120 $180 Other amount