When Bad Bunny was first announced as this year’s Super Bowl Halftime Show performer, President Donald Trump claimed not to know who he was. But after the Puerto Rican artist delivered an instantly iconic, unapologetic display of his Puerto Rican heritage, Latino unity, and the resilience of a unified community, the president has learned exactly who Benito is, and he is — to no one’s surprise — crashing out.
Trump, who has long made Latinos and Hispanics central scapegoats of his political project, has spent the better part of the last year terrorizing immigrant communities — both documented and undocumented — with mass deportations, arbitrary detention, and racial profiling. Not to mention the unfettered abuses of a hyper militarized Department of Homeland Security, ICE, and border patrol. Bad Bunny — who performed entirely in Spanish — did not explicitly mention Trump or his personal anti-immigration army, but the halftime show had a clear message for the president: Latinos are here, and they are America.
In a lengthy message posted to Truth Social shortly after the halftime show ended, Trump wrote that the performance was “an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn’t represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence.”
“Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting,” Trump added, “This ‘Show’ is just a ‘slap in the face’ to our Country […] There is nothing inspirational about this mess of a Halftime Show and watch, it will get great reviews from the Fake News Media, because they haven’t got a clue of what is going on in the REAL WORLD.”
“And, by the way, the NFL should immediately replace its ridiculous new Kickoff Rule,” he concluded.
The furious response came after the White House had publicly declared that Trump would not be watching the halftime show, and would instead tune in to Turning Point USA’s alternate “Real American Halftime Show,” headlined by Kid Rock.
Just a week before the performance, Bad Bunny had used his speech during the Grammy Awards — where his most recent album Debí Tirar Más Fotos won Album of The Year — to draw attention to ICE’s violent, frequently unlawful targeting and abuse against immigrant communities.
Trending Stories
“Before I say, ‘Thanks to God,’ I’m going to say, ‘ICE out,” Bad Bunny declared in his Album of the Year acceptance speech. The artist had previously excluded American cities from his album tour, citing concerns that his concerts — popular among all demographics but particularly by Hispanics and Latinos — would be targeted by ICE and the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement surge.
It seems the president — like many right wingers who claimed to be boycotting the halftime show — couldn’t resist the temptation of seeing one of the most popular artists on the planet, even if it was just to farm outrage bait.
