Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will not stop working out on camera. He does push-up competitions with Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and pull-up challenges with the transportation secretary.
But in a recent workout, the health secretary went one step further. He rides an exercise bike shirtless in his jeans, teaming up with musician Kid Rock to also pump iron and drink milk. Animations of a shark, military aircraft and the United States flag open the 90-second video to the Kid Rock tune of “Bawitdaba.”
Displaying ripped male bodies is the real political message of Kennedy Jr.’s workouts, according to sociologists and gender scholars.
It’s the latest example of how key members of the Trump administration are using official government channels as their personal locker room to show off ripped muscles. While the U.S. is on the brink of war with Iran, Hegseth filmed himself attempting to bench-press over 300 pounds while stating, “Gotta keep the butt down.”
The top X reply to Hegseth’s workout: “Bro, go do your job.”
However, under the second Trump administration, publicly displaying physical prowess is the job of cabinet officials such as Kennedy and Hegseth.
Kennedy said he teamed up with Kid Rock for these workouts “to deliver two simple messages to the American people: GET ACTIVE + EAT REAL FOOD.”
Displaying ripped male bodies, however, is the real political message, according to sociologists and gender scholars: Seeing Kennedy’s over-the-top topless workout is sharing a very real and limiting idea of what a man should look like and be.
“As ridiculous as these videos might seem, the messages about white nationalism and masculinity and the fact that the videos are produced by…and posted by the government, I think means we should take them very seriously,” said Kristen Barber, a professor in women’s and gender studies at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
The ‘MAGA’ male body needs to be excessively muscular, no matter what age.
Illustration: HuffPost; Photos: Getty
“This male ‘MAGA’ body is about being war-ready,” a gender scholar told HuffPost.
In the video, Kennedy also does push-ups in Kid Rock’s sauna. What’s striking about this is how it forces the viewer to see how muscular his chest and biceps are for a 72-year-old man, an age at which men typically lose muscle mass.
Barber compared this display to actor Jack Palance’s famous one-armed push-ups he did on stage at the 64th Academy Awards in 1992, when he won an award at age 73. In both cases, the push-ups were not necessary ― but this excessiveness is exactly the point.
Both Kennedy and Palance are “representing this idea that despite their age and despite whatever else is going on with their health, that if they can demonstrate strength, that they can still be masculine men,” Barber said. “I look at it as sad and unfortunate, but I think that there are a lot of people, including a lot of boys and young men, who see it as important.”
In Kennedy’s case, the message conveys: “He might not have an M.D., he might not have a Ph.D, but man is he ripped, right?” Barber said. “So he’s somebody that you can trust when it comes to conversations about health and wellness.”
What’s distinct about Kennedy is how serious he is about showing off his body, said Tristan Bridges, a sociologist who studies masculinity and gender at the University of California, Santa Barbara. It’s a sharp contrast from the tongue-in-cheek way strongmen and bodybuilders like Arnold Schwarzenegger and actor Isaiah Mustafa in Old Spice television commercials would poke fun at excessively toned bodies in ads.
Kennedy is “trying to co-opt the energy off of satirical masculinities, but present them seriously. And that’s what makes it feel conservative,” Bridges said.
In these ways, both Hegseth and Kennedy are using their bodies to signal the ideologies against which they’re fighting, Barber said.
Hegseth, for example, has an ongoing war against being “woke” in the U.S. military, including diversity, equity and inclusion programs. He doesn’t want “weak men” in combat roles, he has said in speeches.
Barber said the hypermasculinity on display in these videos emphasizes strength and the potential for aggression; these ideas are also not new. Think about the photo of President Theodore Roosevelt on a horse with his shotgun. The white supremacist organization, the Ku Klux Klan, also historically used hypermasculinity to push white nationalist ideas, Barber said.
Hypermasculinity gets turbocharged into culture when there are fears around the feminization of our society through perceived feminine values like empathy and support for women and children, Barber said. That’s why consuming these masculine videos of strength has downsides for everyone, even though women are mostly absent from these videos.
“These messages are suggesting that particular actions mean that particular people will be superior, healthier, stronger and more battle-ready,” Barber said, adding that “this male ‘MAGA’ body is about being war-ready, whether it’s a race war, or a war on ‘the woke.’”
Of course, not all buff bodies are ‘MAGA bodies.’
Americans are living through a moment where there are stark divides about what politics you believe and whether Democrats and Republicans can even agree on basic facts. It’s no wonder then that physical fitness regimens have become political too — even if what it signals about you is wrong.
You might get coded with having a “MAGA body” if you lift enough weights, even though your politics aren’t conservative. A New York Times 2025 headline described buff leftist streamer Hasan Piker as a “progressive mind in a MAGA body.”
In the videos by Hegseth and Kennedy, the gym setting is notable as well. Historically, getting jacked at the gym has long been a way to recruit and prepare people for a revolution. Once you learn how to transform your body, you might want to transform your nation too.
A 2023 Jacobin article traced how German immigrants in the U.S. started gymnastics clubs in the early 1800s and used their barbell community to advance the message of ending slavery and promoting socialism in the U.S. Nowadays, there are “swoletariats,” a word that combines the word “swole,” meaning buff, and “proletariat.” It’s a growing subreddit for like-minded people to discuss fitness goals and progressive politics.
But getting in shape together has also been a popular extremist activity, especially combat fitness groups targeted to men. A 2025 Canadian Broadcast Company investigation found that far-right “active clubs” were training young men to learn martial arts and, per the report, join anti-immigration protests.
Ultimately, whether or not it’s true, getting visibly more muscular signals your physical strength. Buff bodies are not “MAGA” bodies, but in this political climate, every activity can become “MAGA”-coded.
“When political polarization is as extreme as it has become in the United States, basically everything becomes some kind of evidence of your politics,” Bridges said. “I think bodies are part of this larger phenomenon where…it almost feels like you can judge someone’s politics by virtually any habit that they have.”
