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- Pete Hegseth humiliated by X community note in Top Gun stunt (irishstar.com)
“Top Gun” Dreams Take Flight… Minus the Flying Part for Secretary Hegseth
It seems Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently had a brush with his inner Maverick, albeit from the co-pilot’s seat. The internet, ever vigilant, was quick to point out that while Hegseth was indeed soaring in a fighter jet featured in “Top Gun: Maverick,” he wasn’t the one at the controls.
The story unfolded after a right-wing X account, @BehizyTweets, posted a video praising Hegseth’s supposed piloting skills, declaring him “the coolest Secretary of Defense in American history.” This prompted X’s crowd-sourced Community Notes feature to step in with a reality check, initially stating, “He can’t.
Hegseth was a passenger.” The note has since been updated for even greater clarity, now reading, “Pete Hegseth did not fly this plane or cannot fly any plane currently.
He has no known flight training or certification. He was in the back seat.”
The real pilot of the FA-18 Super Hornet? That would be Lt. Commander Dillon “Bodacious” Hamrick.
Hegseth himself posted a video of the flight to his @SecWar X account, a montage showing him suiting up and then, in a close-up, yelling “woohoo” from the passenger seat as the jet cut through the air. Post-flight, Hegseth emerged to a playful water gun ambush from his wife and a group of children, joking, “It’s an ambush, a straight-up ambush.”
He also proudly declared to the camera, “It’s clean, there’s no puke in there. I didn’t even pull my mask off this time.”
While neither Hegseth nor the Department of Defense explicitly claimed he was the pilot, The Daily Beast reports that videos from the “Department of War” (the DOD’s “secondary title” per a recent executive order) didn’t exactly make it clear that Hegseth wasn’t at the helm. One snippet, reposted by former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger, featured footage solely of Hegseth in the plane during flight, leading Kinzinger to comment, “They really are not saying but kind of trying to imply to people that he flew it.”
So, while Secretary Hegseth might not be getting his pilot’s wings just yet, he certainly got to experience the thrill of a lifetime from the best seat in the house!
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- Pete Hegseth humiliated by X community note in Top Gun stunt (irishstar.com)