Hegseth blowing taxpayer dollars on joyrides in Army helicopters

 blowing taxpayer dollars on joyrides in Army helicopters

• Public Citizen 

  citizen.org

  From:president@citizen.org

  
  

  To:m.mk@...

  Sat, May 2 2026 at 2:03 PM

  We never thought we’d be sending an email about the musician known as “Kid Rock,” but here we are.
  

  • Perhaps you remember Kid Rock from his 1999 breakout nu metal smash “Bawitdaba” and its timeless refrain: “Bawitdaba da-bang da-bang diggy diggy diggy said the boogie said up drop the boogie.”

  • Or not.

  • Last Monday, “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth took the singer — whose real name is Robert James Ritchie and who has gone full MAGA over the years — on a joyride in a U.S. Army Apache helicopter.

  • This is how the man supposedly in charge of the most powerful military humankind has ever known is spending his time. And your tax dollars.

  • Never mind that there is, you know, an actual war going on. A war that Donald Trump started. A war that does not seem to be going all that well. A war that, according to credible reporting, Hegseth may not even be telling Trump the full truth about.

  Here’s what one of us (Lisa) told the national media:
  
  “Pete Hegseth appears to be blowing taxpayer dollars on joyrides with his favorite sycophantic musician while Trump’s war on Iran continues to wreak death, destruction, and financial instability across the globe. Americans deserve to know how this happened, who approved it, and why.”
  
  
  
  Thanks for taking action.
  
  For progress,
  
  - Lisa Gilbert & Robert Weissman, Co-Presidents of Public Citizen
  
  P.S. Public Citizen has filed dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests since Trump returned to power. In April, we won a lawsuit over a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain the contract for the gaudy, gargantuan ballroom Trump is erecting where the East Wing of the White House stood until he illegally demolished it last fall.