Jake and Logan Paul's speech at Pentagon raises eyebrows - Newsweek

Influencer brothers Logan and Jake Paul visited the Pentagon and addressed service members last week, the Department of Defense revealed in a video posted on Sunday.

The glossy clip, overlaid with dramatic music fit for a Hollywood movie trailer, showed the brothers addressing a smiling group of soldiers and officials before cutting to footage of them meeting personnel, including Hegseth, and posing for photos.

"We see all the men and women here who are serving this great nation. I don’t think there’s any greater commitment to sacrifice than those who are willing to live, die and fight for their country," Logan said.

He went on to thank service members who "fight for and allow us in this country to have that freedom where we can prosper and be happy and be the great nation that we are."

"Each one of you matter. Take this moment and be proud of yourselves for what you do," Jake said. "This is the greatest country in the world, truly. We are blessed to be born here, come here, and we should never take that for granted.

"That’s what God created us for, is to lift each other up in the hard moments, to be there for each other in the hard moments and to come together as a collective and fight for good. That’s why this country was formed. We should never forget that," he said.

Newsweek contacted the Pentagon and the Paul brothers via email on Monday, outside of regular working hours, and is awaiting responses.

It is not clear why the brothers made the visit.

Task & Purpose reported that the pair paid for their own transportation. The outlet said that, along with Hegseth, Jake Paul also met with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

"The Department of War was proud to host Jake and Logan Paul at the Pentagon this week. They toured the building, paid their respects at our 9/11 memorial, thanked our service members, and briefly met with Secretary Hegseth," Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Joel Valdez told Task & Purpose in a statement, using the department’s unofficial name. "The Department is grateful for their visit and continued support of our military."

The Paul brothers, who have more than 44 million subscribers on YouTube combined, rose to fame as social media personalities before expanding into boxing and other business ventures.

The pair have become more politically outspoken in recent years, particularly Jake, who publicly endorsed Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election, and has repeatedly expressed support for his policies on issues including immigration and transgender rights.

Logan also interviewed Trump on his Impaulsive podcast in 2024, and the pair attended his inauguration in 2025.

Jake appeared at a Kentucky rally with Trump in March, where the president said he would give him his "complete and total endorsement" if he ever chose to run for political office.

Earlier this month, Jake told an interviewer at a summit that he believed that the Second Amendment should be revised to allow citizens to possess more sophisticated weapons capable of overthrowing a potentially tyrannical government.

"I think as weapons systems get more advanced, a pistol or a shotgun is not going to be able to upthrow the government, if we the people decide that the United States government is taking advantage of us," he said, arguing that citizens should have access to "drones, EMPs, RPGs potentially, anti-helicopter" weapons.

The brothers have courted controversy throughout their careers, including Logan's 2017 posting of a video showing the body of an apparent suicide victim in Japan's Aokigahara forest, which prompted widespread backlash and an apology from the YouTuber.

The Paul brothers’ Pentagon visit was met with disbelief and mockery on social media.

Former Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger reposted the video on X and wrote: "We aren’t a serious country at the moment."

Another X user wrote: "WW2 Vets: "I remember Bob Hope entertaining us!"

Desert Storm Vets added: "Robin Williams was great!"

2026 commented: "There was that time the fake boxer and dude that opens Pokemon packs on stream came to tell us to fight for Israel."

Several commentators compared the situation with the 2006 satirical movie Idiocracy, in which an average man wakes up 500 years in the future to find that human society has devolved into a dumbed-down dystopia.

The Pentagon’s Instagram post also drew criticism.

"Our government is just trolling us at this point," one comment said, which was liked by over 20,000 people—the Instagram post itself has only 44,000 likes at the time of writing.

Another highly-liked comment said, "I was hoping this was satire. What are we doing man," with a clown emoji.

The Paul brothers’ visit comes amid a broader effort by the Trump administration and the Defense Department to embrace celebrities, athletes and influencers.

When the Trump administration held a UFC fight on the White House lawn, the Pentagon recruited hundreds of service members to attend as spectators.

Hegseth has also publicly cultivated relationships with figures including Trump ally Kid Rock. In March, the defense secretary intervened after two Army Apache crews were suspended for flying close to Kid Rock’s Tennessee home, announcing that they would face no punishment. Hegseth later said he took Kid Rock on an Apache helicopter flight himself.