The Army is investigating a video that appears to show an Apache attack helicopter flying low outside singer Kid Rock’s Nashville residence, a spokesperson confirmed.

Two videos, posted by Kid Rock to social media on Saturday, show the country rock artist applauding and saluting an Apache helicopter as it hovers close to his outdoor pool before flying off.

Maj. Montrell Russell, a spokesperson for the Army, said in a statement that the Army had begun an administrative review “to assess the mission and verify compliance with regulations and airspace requirements.” The Army will take “appropriate action” if it finds any violations took place, he said.

“The Army is aware of a video circulating online that appears to show AH‑64 Apache helicopters operating in the vicinity of a private residence in the Nashville area,” Russell said. “Army aviators must adhere to strict safety standards, professionalism, and established flight regulations.”

Kid Rock’s manager did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the video.

The artist, whose real name is Robert Ritchie, is a longtime supporter of President Donald Trump and has aligned himself closely with the MAGA movement in recent years. He performed at the 2024 Republican National Convention and at Turning Point USA’s “All-American Halftime Show,” an alternative performance to Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny’s official NFL halftime show at the 2026 Super Bowl.

Kid Rock captioned his Saturday post on X: “This is a level of respect that shit for brains Governor of California will never know. God Bless America and all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice to defend her.”

Izzy Gardon, a spokesperson for California Gov. Gavin Newsom, responded to Kid Rock’s comments in a brief statement: “Waste, fraud, abuse!”

The two have clashed before, with Newsom writing on social media in February that he was “banning” the artist from California in response to an exercise video he appeared in with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. earlier this year.

Kid Rock also flirted with a Senate run in 2017, launching a campaign website and fueling speculation that he intended to challenge former Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), but he later dismissed the stunt as a “joke.”

When the U.S.-Israel war with Iran began a month ago, the tragic potential reverberations of past conflicts echoed quickly for Virginia state Del. Dan Helmer, who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and is now running for Congress as a Democrat.

“In 2002, a president lied to the American people and sent my friends to die in a war of choice,” he told Blue Light News in an interview, noting that next month marks the 22nd anniversary of his first friend’s death in combat. “And once again, President [Donald] Trump has circumvented the democratic process to launch a war of choice without strategic insight in Iran. … The consequences of reckless military intervention are pretty clear. And the challenges in enacting regime change to get a predictable outcome have defined my experience in the military.”

Michael Bouchard sees things differently. The Michigan Republican House candidate and Bronze Star recipient served in the Army and National Guard, including a counter-ISIS deployment in Iraq for most of 2025 — which encompassed the last Israel-Iran war. Bouchard thinks the current conflict is a necessary, limited mission against a regional menace that has endangered and targeted U.S. service members for decades.

“I’ve seen peace through strength save my friends’ lives, and that’s what this is,” he said. “No one wants to go to war less than somebody who’s been to it. But we can’t just put our heads in the sand and hope things don’t happen.”

Dozens of military veterans running for Congress across the country, both Democrats and Republicans, have now adapted their campaign messaging to befit a nation at war. In a rapidly changing landscape — with ceasefire talks, military escalation and global energy crisis all on the table on any given day — candidates from each party have starkly opposed perspectives on the conflict. But for many of them, the costs and the imperatives of war feel deeply personal.

New York Assemblymember Robert Smullen, who spent 24 years in the Marine Corps and is campaigning in an Upstate GOP House primary, has done multiple Strait of Hormuz transits and studied the enrichment process as a White House fellow at the Energy Department. Montana Democrat Matt Rains, who flew Black Hawks in South Korea and Iraq, is also a rancher watching crucial diesel costs rise. Zach Dembo, a former Navy JAG officer running as a Democrat in Kentucky, has been on two of the aircraft carriers now deployed to the Middle East.

All of that intimate knowledge leads them to some pretty different conclusions.

What they agree on: More than half a dozen Democratic and Republican veteran candidates who spoke with Blue Light News said they oppose the autocratic Iranian government and wouldn’t be sorry to see it go.

Beyond that — and respect for the troops — there’s little consensus across the partisan divide.

Democrats are fuming that Trump didn’t make the case for war and get buy-in from the American public, Congress and foreign allies. They argue that the U.S. approach has lacked clear plans and strategic goals. And they deeply fear that what they see as Trump’s recklessness will lead to another forever war, needlessly sacrificing soldiers’ lives without achieving any big-picture goals.

“I don’t see an endgame here, and it makes me really worried,” Dembo said.

“This idea that you can just briefly drop bombs on a nation … and they’ll just like raise the white flag and beg for us to come put a new government in there, I mean, is asinine,” Rains said.

Many Democrats also see the war as a costly distraction from Americans’ economic struggles. “The amount of money we are spending on this war and on this conflict right now, when we have so many issues here at home that are not being addressed … that’s where the real disconnect is,” said Jessica Killin, an Army veteran running in Colorado.

GOP veterans say they oppose endless wars, too. But that’s not how they see this one. Hewing closely to Trump’s messaging, Republicans told Blue Light News that Iran has been the real belligerent for 47 years. They agree with their Democratic counterparts that the U.S. needs to have a clear plan and not let the conflict drag out for too long — but they have much greater trust in Trump to achieve those goals, principally stopping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

“I understand veterans’ issues. I understand the cost of what they’ve given, their families have given,” said Oregon Republican Monique DeSpain, an Air Force veteran and JAG who’s worked with veterans for 30 years. “That’s why I feel strongly [about] swift removal of any threats to our country … Congress needs to understand national security: The cost of delay and inaction is irreversible.”

It remains to be seen how voters during wartime will receive these and other veterans running for Congress, many of them in crowded primaries or swing districts. Those who spoke with Blue Light News said they think they’re uniquely positioned to speak with authority: Democrats pitching their national security expertise to lay bare the war’s flaws, and Republicans reassuring skittish voters about why the U.S. strikes can succeed and bolster American security.

“I’ve been in their shoes, and I actually know what they’re doing and what they’re facing, because I dealt with the same thing after September 11th,” Smullen said of the troops currently being deployed. “It’s a mission that needs to be done. It’s about time that we did it.”

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Former Republican Rep. Mark Sanford is set to make a run for his former congressional seat, according to paperwork filed with South Carolina’s elections commission.

Sanford is a fixture in South Carolina politics, known nationally for his high-profile extramarital affair while serving as governor, his sharp criticism of President Donald Trump while serving in Congress and his quixotic 2020 presidential run against Trump.

He submitted paperwork recently to run in the already-crowded Republican primary in the first congressional district stretching from the Charleston area down the coast to Hilton Head Island, vacated by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) as she mounts a bid for governor. The election commission’s website shows Sanford as an “active” candidate.

The former Palmetto State politician — who slammed Trump for his brash personality and conduct during his first term — is seeking to reenter Republican politics even as Trump maintains his ironclad grip on the party.

Sanford did not respond to a call and text message from Blue Light News, but he told the Post & Courier on Monday that “people have been telling me it’s time to get off the bleachers” and promised to focus his campaign on his longtime top issue: the national debt.

The former governor and member of Congress has a long record in state and national politics — and a history of making remarkable political comebacks. First elected to Congress in 1994, Sanford served in the seat he is once again seeking for nearly a decade before mounting a successful bid for governor in 2002. He also received early buzz as a potential 2012 presidential candidate.

But his political fortunes came to a crashing halt in 2009 when he disappeared from the state under the auspices of hiking on the Appalachian Trail — only later admitting he had taken part in an extramarital affair with a woman in Argentina. Sanford declined to resign from his post, but ceded his chairmanship of the Republican Governors Association and quietly left office at the end of his second term.

He reentered politics just a few years later, announcing a bid for the first congressional district, winning a crowded primary and holding the seat until he lost to a Trump-backed primary challenger in 2018, only for a Democrat to go on to flip the seat in the 2018 midterms.

Sanford later launched a longshot presidential primary bid against Trump. He dropped out in November of 2019.

The South Carolina Republican is set to face off against several candidates in this June’s primary, including a popular state representative, a local Charleston county councilmember, and a retired lieutenant colonel who commanded the final flight of U.S. forces out of Afghanistan in 2021.