Pete Hegseth Reportedly Took Kid Rock on Apache Helicopter 'Joy Ride'

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: MEDIAite

Apr 27th, 2026, 6:54 pm


Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth reportedly took musician and Trump ally Kid Rock on not one but two Apache helicopters for a “joy ride” on Monday morning.

Drop Site reporter Ryan Grim shared the scoop in a post on X, alleging that he spoke to “multiple Army sources” who confirmed, “Kid Rock flew to Fort Belvoir this morning on his private jet and took a little joy ride on two Apache helicopters with War Secretary Pete Hegseth.”. The information, Grim wrote, was “backed up by flight data.”

While most Apache helicopters typically have two crew members, consisting of a pilot and co-pilot/gunner, Grim reported that Hegseth and Rock went up with only one pilot “so the boys could each ride shotgun.”

Grim claimed he reached out to Fort Belvoir for comment but was redirected to the Secretary of Defense’s office.

Read more: https://www.mediaite.com/politics/trump/pete-hegseth-reportedly-took-kid-rock-on-apache-helicopter-joy-ride/

[Tim S]

1. Seduction attempt?

[JBTaurus83]

2. Why in the hell

Are they doing special favors for this guy? He hasn’t had any relevancy in two decades.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. Like pants-shitting Nugent did for MAGat boomers

he represents a "constituency" of MAGats, but in his case, the GenX ones (the oldest now becoming the "new seniors" ).

[2naSalit]

5. Speaking of...

Wangotngoboy, is he dead yet?

Hopefully he is incapacitated if he is still wasting air.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. !!!

I remember when he got COVID and whined about it on live-stream videos.

But then I know a bunch of progressive talk hosts also had count-downs each day for when he would be "dead or in jail" per his promise. Alas.

[Skittles]

22. Kid Fucking Rock is what passes for a "celebrity" for repukes

it's NOT like they can do any better, ya know?

[UpInArms]

3. Of course he did

Republicans are vile … stupid and childish

I won’t forget Baby Bush’s joyride that sank the Ehime Maru

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehime_Maru_and_USS_Greeneville_collision

On 9 February 2001, about nine nautical miles (17 km; 10 mi) south of Oahu, Hawaii, in the Pacific Ocean, the United States Navy (USN) Los Angeles-class submarine USS Greeneville collided with the Japanese fishery high-school training ship Ehime Maru (えひめ丸 from Ehime Prefecture. In a demonstration for some VIP civilian visitors, Greeneville performed an emergency ballast blow surfacing maneuver. As the submarine shot to the surface, she struck Ehime Maru. Within ten minutes of the collision, Ehime Maru sank. Nine of the thirty-five people aboard were killed: four high school students, two teachers, and three crew members.

[niyad]

8. Thank you for the reminder of that horrific incident.

[twodogsbarking]

6. They ain't never gonna git the stink out of that there chopper.

[bluedigger]

9. Celebrities have been given guest flights on military aircraft for a long time now.

Kid Rock sucks, but find a better outrage.

[BumRushDaShow]

10. Waste. Fraud. Abuse.

Remember that phrase from somewhere?

ETA - jet fuel is scarce and at a premium due to the Iran war so right there you have unnecessary waste of resources. If he wants to do USO stuff, then he needs to go that route to "visit troops" and "perform" (or whatever the hell he thinks he is doing).

[bluedigger]

12. Pilots always need flight time.

Hopefully the jet fuel supply is sufficient to prevent grounding the fleet. Most back seaters are there for little more than flight balance unless they are going to a live fire range. And recruiters like having famous people in photos with their hardware, and the publicity in general. There is ample precedent for this sort of activity, even for a jerk like Kid Rock. Of the two, Hegseth's joyride is harder to justify, lol.

[BumRushDaShow]

14. Irrelevant

There are multiple "active" (with live fire) military engagements underway, not just in the ME but in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, and after blowing their wad in a useless "show of bragging" in Iran, their stocks are low.

There might be "precedent" during "peace time" but we're not IN "peace time".

Send his ass on a USO tour (which is privately funded) and leave what we have left alone.

I had a coworker who was a Lt. Colonel and Reservist in the army who did her once a months, and once a year "summer camp" and she would complain that they never had enough ammunition to even train with.

Right now, you have troops in carrier groups out on the seas of the ME who have posted pics of their sparse meals. I.e., they apparently don't have enough rations to feed sailors on those 4000-person aircraft carriers and have halted package deliveries to them that are trying to supplement what little they have. THOSE pics become the NEGATIVE P.R. for any recruiting efforts.

And THAT is the kind of dysfunction that is going on in "real life".

[WmChris]

26. Enlist

If wants a thrill he sould enlist go through boot camp and volunteer to be a door gunner. That should provide enough adrenaline or in his case enough fear to teach him it ain't all fun and games.

[BumRushDaShow]

27. Exactly

But he wouldn’t even make it to boot camp let alone make it out of boot camp.

[magicarpet]

29. Hegseth is missappropriating publicly funded taxpayer resources intended

... specifically intended for military use but they consider for their personal play things. All done to prove and burnish their desired persona of being seen as alpha males and tough guy big dicked macho men. These department heads all think and act like the fanatical Fascist Sebastian Gorka - that Nazi puke.

We have a right and a duty to know about and curtail these sophomoric
fratboy fascist and their childish indiscretions done using and abusing our hard earned taxpayer dimes as their personal entertainment piggy banks. Grow the fuck up you children who think they are men.

...... BUT FIND A BETTER OUTRAGE.... (than egregious waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer funded resources....) ARE YOU - trying to be serious but are actually delirious ?

Hegseth and Patel over at the FBI, come from the same mold. They think the federal department they run is their private fiefdom to play with as they wish like children flailing a round in a backyard sandbox. Grow the fuck up little boys. But this is the way trDUMP likes his department heads to react and respond. A cavalier - boys will be boys yearning to be seen as grown up men. But they are eternally stuck in childhood while suffering from retarded development or infantile paralysis or some such thing. One known fact is these people are clearly damaged goods as human beings. Where does djt find them all ?

++++++++++
++++++++++

Another thing about Pete KkKegsbreath, he is a prevaricating and compulsive liar. He is giving war reports designed to make himself look good and the Team trdump admin. look good. But these Pentagon press release news conferences are full of rank inaccuracies and embellishments to falsely indicate America is winning and has won the Iranian War. These Hegseth Pentagon news reports are by design seriously misleading the US public. But more dangerously Hegseth is miss reporting what is actually transpiring on the ground in the theater of war. Hegseth is trying to happy talk the executive department but egregiously misleading them to make trDUMP elated about the war progress and the fantastic results of Team Hegseth at the helm of djt's war machine.

+++++
Source from an article in the Washington Post & in the New Republic,...

Pete Hegseth Is Misleading Trump and Us About Iran War
Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling
Tue, April 7, 2026 at 4:13 PM EDT
3 min read

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s relentless claims of an unqualified success in Iran has only put American defenses in jeopardy.

The weekend rescue of a downed F-15 crew member stands as proof that America does not have “complete control of Iranian skies,” despite what Hegseth pledged last month. Nonetheless, Donald Trump has unquestioningly regurgitated Hegseth’s militaristic optimism to the nation, fueling concerns that the White House is knowingly feeding misinformation to the American people, reported The Washington Post Tuesday.

“Pete is not speaking truth to the president,” one administration official told the newspaper. “As a result, the president is out there repeating misleading information.”

On Monday, Trump acknowledged that the fighter jet had been struck by a heat-seeking missile. It was a “lucky hit,” according to the president’s assessment.

More at link below,....

https://newrepublic.com/post/208737/pete-hegseth-misleading-donald-trump-iran

[BumRushDaShow]

30. As a retired fed

I know me and my former co-workers were run through a flaming gauntlet of annual security, procurement (including appropriations), AND ethics training, and given plenty of examples of the “fools” who dared violate any of the rules, and the consequences that befell them.

The GS-1000s? Not so much.

[magicarpet]

31. Trump is tearing down and crashing through all these guardrails that permit our government to,...

.... function normally and survive. Honesty and ethical behavior is totally tossed out the window. It is dog eat dog and survival of the fittest only.

[BumRushDaShow]

32. That's why

when I got the final calc for when I could retire, I was outta there 2 weeks into 45's first term!

[CTyankee]

17. I don't recall Obama doing this.

[Skittles]

23. could you provide examples of that?

thank you

[flvegan]

11. Maybe he'll be inspired to enlist. n/t

[AverageOldGuy]

13. Article with photos on CNN . . .

. . . but it's behind a subscriber paywall.

https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/28/politics/hegseth-kid-rock-army-apache-helicopter-ride

[jeffreyi]

15. The rules are for thee, not for me.

[Aristus]

16. Hey, dickheads! If you want to "play" on military hardware, enlist!

I did!

I wanted to be an M1 Abrams tanker more than anything else in the world. So I enlisted. Age 17. Did three years reserve and four years active. Got my wish, but I did the work and paid my dues. New rule: you want a "joyride" on a military vehicle, you get to do the hours of maintenance required before and after your fun.

[Skittles]

24. to be fair

I was enlisted, but couldn't get a "joyride" on a fighter jet

[C Moon]

18. It's only tax dollars and trump can seemingly spend them anyway he wishes.

[LudwigPastorius]

19. I find this highly offensive.

How dare Mediaite refer to Kid Rock as a "musician".

[LetMyPeopleVote]

20. MaddowBlog-Hegseth faces pushback after giving Kid Rock 'joy rides' on Apache helicopters

“Why is Pete Hegseth spending your taxpayer dollars to give Kid Rock ‘joy rides’ on Apache helicopters?” one Democratic lawmaker asked.

Hegseth faces pushback after giving Kid Rock ‘joy rides’ on Apache helicopters
“Why is Pete Hegseth spending your taxpayer dollars to give Kid Rock ‘joy rides’ on Apache helicopters?” one Democratic lawmaker asked.
MS NOW: apple.news/A_zXw-8mITPq...
😡unbelievable, two drunks playing military guys

— CVJ (@enuffsaysv.bsky.social) 2026-04-28T21:23:22.643Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/hegseth-faces-pushback-after-giving-kid-rock-joy-rides-on-apache-helicopters

It was about a month ago when an entertainer named Kid Rock, who had one Top 10 hit nearly a quarter century ago, shared videos via social media of Apache helicopters doing a flyby at his home in Nashville, Tennessee. The clips showed the entertainer, whose real name is Robert Ritchie, saluting and applauding the troops......

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, however, came to a very different conclusion about the value of playing games, reversed the crew members’ suspension and abruptly closed the Army’s investigation. The New York Times reported that the moves represented “a remarkable intervention from the highest level of the Pentagon,” adding that the decree “was another indication of his contempt for legal guardrails in the military.”

Common sense might have suggested Hegseth would exercise at least some greater caution going forward. In the Pentagon chief’s office, however, common sense is apparently in short supply. The Associated Press reported:

Kid Rock and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth both flew in Army Apache attack helicopters at a base in Virginia on Monday, weeks after military pilots drew scrutiny for hovering near the entertainer’s Tennessee home.

On social media Monday night, Hegseth posted photos of himself and Kid Rock at the base. … Drop Site News was first to report Monday’s flights in Virginia.

For good measure, the former Fox News host also posted a photo of the entertainer speaking to a group of service members in the Pentagon press briefing room.

The AP’s report added that an Army Apache helicopter costs about $7,000 per hour to fly, which naturally led to a fresh round of questions about wasting public resources for, to borrow the president’s phrasing, “playing games.”,....

At a press briefing last week, the beleaguered defense secretary was asked whether he feels like he’s “on a power trip.” Hegseth dismissed the line of inquiry, though with the Kid Rock incidents in mind, concerns along these lines are likely to linger.

[riversedge]

21. I suspect tax payers paid for the Joy rides???!!!

[Kid Berwyn]

25. Protecting the pedo-n-thief at $7,000 per hour.

Aviation fuel’s gone up a bit recently, as well.

[Norrrm]

28. What benefit does Trump get from 'Kid' Rock? A clown who has outlived his name. Another pedo.

[jmowreader]

33. PLEASE tell me they unhooked the Chain Gun power cables first

Knowing Kegsbreath, he'd invite Kid Rock to lay waste to a few Democrats' houses just on general principles if they didn't disable the guns on those birds.