The Washington Post reports Gen. Randy George was urged to drop the Kid Rock flyover inquiry before being fired.
The US Army’s most senior officer was advised to abandon an investigation into a helicopter flyover of Kid Rock‘s Tennessee property days before Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth removed him from his post, according to The Washington Post.
The paper reported on 26 August that three people familiar with the matter say Gen. Chris LaNeve, then Hegseth‘s senior military assistant, told Army chief of staff Gen. Randy George that the Defense Secretary did not want the review to continue. George was dismissed on 2 April without a public explanation. None of the accounts has been confirmed on the record, and Hegseth has not addressed the conversation.
Two AH-64 Apache helicopters from the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade at Fort Campbell were flown at low altitude over Nashville on 28 March. They passed over a No Kings protest in the city before manoeuvring near the estate belonging to Kid Rock, whose legal name is Robert Ritchie, in what the Army later established had deviated from a planned training routine.
Kid Rock filmed the aircraft from his property and posted the footage to social media, where President Donald Trump also shared it. The Army grounded the crews pending a review.
Three days later, on 31 March, Hegseth posted on X: “Thank you @KidRock.”
“@USArmy pilots suspension LIFTED.”
“No punishment. No investigation.”
“Carry on, patriots.”
According to the paper’s sources, George wanted the review to run its course to establish whether safety regulations had been broken. Two of the three said he described the conversation with LaNeve to colleagues afterwards and appeared troubled by it.
George, who is now retired, declined to comment through a spokesman. Army officials did not respond to the Post’s questions about LaNeve.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell dismissed the reporting to the Post as “regurgitating” a “tired, old story simply to manufacture drama.”
Hegseth issued a statement that did not address the exchange between the two generals but defended LaNeve, describing him as “precisely the kind of leader the U.S. Army needs right now” and saying he was not interested in “playing politics in Washington.”
“He is a back-to-basics, no politics, no-nonsense General — exactly what President Trump expects,” Hegseth said. “The critics coming after him are the same out-of-touch so-called insiders who’ve spent years undermining our military with woke policies and endless wars. They hold deep grudges against any commander willing to put America and our troops first, but their days of influence are over.”
The service has had no permanent chief of staff since George‘s removal. LaNeve has held the role in an acting capacity but has not been nominated by the White House, and members of Congress have questioned his candidacy.
The Post and the New York Times have both reported that Hegseth has forced out at least three officers who were seen as possible successors to George, and more than two dozen senior officers since taking office in January 2025, in most cases without stated reasons. George was nominated to the position by Joe Biden in 2023 and served in Operation Desert Shield, Desert Storm, Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom.
Kid Rock is not the subject of any investigation and has not been accused of wrongdoing. The Army’s review concerned the conduct of the aircrews and whether the flight breached safety rules. His involvement was that the aircraft flew over his property and he posted a video of it.
He is a longstanding and public supporter of Trump, which is what has drawn attention to the decision to halt the inquiry. He has not commented on the latest reporting.
During an interview with local news affiliate WKRN, Kid Rock addressed the controversy surrounding military helicopter flyover incident. He said at the time:
“I was sitting right there just having a Saturday morning beer, and I seen the choppers start coming. I was like, ‘Man, it looks like military.’ It’s not the first time they’ve flown over my house; they’re out of Fort Campbell. Which, I was there last Thanksgiving with [U.S. Vice President] JD Vance, and I’ve talked to some of these pilots. I’ve told them: ‘You guys see me waving when you come by the house? You guys are always welcome to cruise by my house, like anytime.’”
He continued: “So they just happened to be coming this way, so I walked over here and I’m like, [waving] ‘Yeah, hell yeah!’ And then they circled back around and came out right over here. I just gave them a salute and kind of a thank you. Man, it was a level of respect that I got that no award or record sales could ever do.”
“At the end of the day, if it makes their day a little brighter for their service to our country protecting us, I think that’s a great thing — especially when I saw yesterday that there was the ‘No Kings’ thing going down and there’s people flipping them off. I don’t care what your politics are, but come on, man — if you’re flipping our military off, I’m the king of the bird. Like, if you’re flipping our military off, you’re on the wrong side of things, man,” he said. “You know, at the end of the day, I thought it was harmless. I thought it was really cool. I was very appreciative of them coming by, and I hope they got a good smile and it made their day a little bit brighter too.”
When questioned about the intense backlash from taxpayers who viewed the maneuver as an inappropriate waste of government funds and a breach of protocol, Kid Rock quickly dismissed the criticism as politically motivated.
“TDS syndrome. They got TDS syndrome. Which is no new news here. It’s like, we know the half of the country that’s going to love it and say, ‘That’s really cool, that’s great for the military’, and the other half that’s going to go, ‘We’re wasting taxpayers’ money,’ this, that, and the other.”
Defending his own longstanding relationship with the armed forces, he highlighted his extensive history of performing for troops stationed overseas.
“I might remind people — not one to sit here and brag about it — but I’ve done a lot of service… I’ve been to the military in every war country from Afghanistan to Iraq to Kosovo, multiple times. Christmases, Thanksgivings. And I think a lot of these guys and girls know that I’ve done a lot for them because I appreciate what they do for us, so I think they know this is a pretty friendly spot if they want to come by and give a wave when they go by.”
Rock concluded: “To the people who serve our country, same thing I’ve said for years: thank you for your service, and keep on ‘Kid Rockin’ in the free world.”
