On Thursday’s episode of “Fox News Specialists,” the panel brought on as guests sports commentator/Trump critic Stephen A. Smith and musician/ardent Trump supporter Ted Nugent.
When the 38 percent increase in illegal immigration-related arrests under President Trump was announced, Nugent made his approval known with a one-man burst of applause.
“I just spent some time with some ICE guys, and some border patrol guys, and I spent a lot of time with these guys, and when Trump became president, there was a huge, universal, law-enforcement sigh of relief that we have a president that now generally sides with the men and women in blue, especially on the border, because they were shackled, they weren’t allowed to enforce the law. They weren’t allowed to do their oath to the Constitution,” Nugent said.
Smith, whose political views are much more complicated than those of Ted Nugent, weighed in on the views of some who are simply anti-immigration.
“No one should have a problem with ‘illegal immigration’ getting addressed. The issue is that a lot of times, when we hear from folks, in their rhetoric, they don’t emphasize the word ‘illegal,’ they just say ‘immigration.’ It gives the impression that there are those that are not welcomed, and that’s never good for America, to disseminate that kind of message,” Smith said.
Nugent agreed that there’s a big difference between “immigration” and “illegal immigration,” but focused on the fact liberals use “immigration” when they could say “illegal immigration.”
“Let’s emphasize that whenever the Left or most of the media, which is the same thing, and the Democrats talk about immigration, they always claim that we’re against immigration, they cannot differentiate between legal activities and illegal activities… so thank you for that,” the rocker argued.
This is where Stephen A. Smith met Ted Nugent in the middle, saying, “I must agree.”