“Gotta keep the butt down,” Hegseth said, presumably to himself, as he attempted to bench press over 300 pounds on camera. “Don’t touch it!” he yelled seconds later, to dissuade his teenage son, who was spotting him, from helping him hoist the weight. The defense secretary then successfully racked his weights and posted the video to social media. There, it received lots of feedback. “Bro, go do your job,” read one comment. “Benching 315 is really impressive even if you don’t like him,” read another.
In another corner of the Trump administration’s virtual locker room, health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr this week posted a video of himself in which he wore jeans in a hot tub, chugged a glass of whole milk and rode an exercise bike in a sauna. These activities were all performed shirtless and under the supervision of musician Kid Rock.
Every day, the men in these videos (well, not Kid Rock) make choices that have the potential to alter lives of countless Americans, whether through changing vaccine schedules or unleashing US firepower around the world.
But they still find a way to work out and hang out.
They’re just guys spending time together and filming it. In fact, most things Trump and his advisers do tend to be explained away as ‘boys will be boys,’ and boy, do they have a lot of energy.
The 90-second video Kennedy released with Kid Rock (government name, Robert Richie) had a policy objective somewhere in there. However, more than a few viewers who watched it struggled to decipher what, exactly, was happening.
USA Today called it an “erotic workout video.” Mika Brzezinski, co-host of Morning Joe, declared that she could not “unsee” it.
The video, called “Secretary Kennedy and Kid Rock’s Rock Out Work Out” and set to the tune of Bawitdaba, the rocker’s 1999 hit single, sees the duo strip off their shirts, wave an American flag by a swimming pool and do situps together.
This was done in the name of promoting Kennedy’s ‘make America healthy again’ agenda, which is organised around whole food and exercise.
Boys will be boys at the airport, where, in December, Kennedy and Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, had a quick pullup competition underneath a newly installed exercise bar.
Boys will be boys on a sunny beach, where Hegseth recently joined Dr Mehmet Oz, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator, for a round of “tree pullups, a cold plunge and a Mediterranean feast,” according to a photo spread shared by Oz.