Jack Crosbie
View all posts by Jack Crosbie May 2, 2026
Kid Rock speaks alongside Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House on March 31, 2025 in Washington, D.C. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images Kid Rock’s bizarre, multi-part saga with U.S. Army helicopters took another turn on Friday. The singer premiered a promo video at the first date on his new concert tour for the America 250 celebrations, featuring himself stepping out of a private jet before hitching a ride to the show in Dallas in a military helicopter with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
@joys_other_account ♬ original sound – Joy’s Other Account
Rock’s helicopter whirligig started back in late March, when a brief flyby of his Tennessee residence caused a brief investigation into the aviators responsible. That investigation, which began at the nearby 101st Airborne post at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and ended abruptly when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth swept in and cleared the pilots of all responsibility for their several-minute joyride past Rock’s “Southern White House” home. The two pilots were briefly suspended before Hegseth’s intervention. In April, Hegseth went a step further, welcoming Rock onto an AH-64 Apache helicopter during a visit to Virginia’s Fort Belvoir. While Rock’s repeated interactions with attack helicopters may have gone down as a fleeting obsession, it appears to have had an actual end result: a roughly 115-second trailer for Rock’s concert tour.
The singer was asked by Fox News earlier on Friday about criticism that he’s getting perks from the government. He responded by bashing the “cackling crows on The View” before implying that he deserves the perks because he’s visited the troops, where as the troops wouldn’t be interested in the host of The View. “It’s just noise,” he added of the criticism.
Put aside the frustration inherent in watching tax dollars go to waste pumping up a geriatric pop-country star’s jingoism-laced publicity tour. AH-64 Apaches only cost around $7,000 per hour to fly, which in the grand scheme of the U.S. military budget is not so much a drop in the bucket as a grain of sand in the Sahara. More noteworthy is the chummy cronyism on display between Kid Rock and Pete Hegseth. The Trump administration has always been desperate for cultural allies, and if Kid Rock is the best they can do, they might not exactly be winning the battle for the hearts and minds of the American people. But that doesn’t stop them from trying, and Kid Rock’s tour promo could in some ways be a beacon to other artists: Look at the access and favor we’ll grant you if you toe the party line.
