Photo: Jabin Botsfordages/The Washington Post via Getty Im
Donald Trump and his supporters have been crashing out over Bad Bunny performing at the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show since October. Days after Bad Bunny was announced as headliner, the president called the move “absolutely ridiculous” and complained, “I’ve never heard of him.”
Turning Point quickly provided MAGA world with an alternative to Bad Bunny: the “All-American Halftime Show.” (You know, because Puerto Ricans aren’t American?) Vice-President J.D. Vance touted TPUSA’s “fantastic lineup,” including “the great Bob Ritchie AKA KID ROCK” on X. And last week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested Trump would tune in to the TPUSA show, saying, “I think the president would much prefer a Kid Rock performance over Bad Bunny. I must say that.”
But it turns out the president would actually much prefer to watch a Bad Bunny performance and complain about it on Truth Social:
Of course, Trump could have watched both performances, as DVRs and streaming video exist — though this seems unlikely. Would a man with passionate views on the “ridiculous new Kickoff Rule” risk missing the second half of the Super Bowl to watch two halftime shows back to back?
It’s also possible that Trump did not actually write this. The White House raised a lot of questions about who is authorized to post erratically on the president’s Truth Social feed when it blamed his racist post about the Obamas on a staffer last week. It’s a little fishy that this post went up at 9 p.m. on the dot, and the inappropriate capitalization feels a little forced. “One of the worst, EVER!” is also a pretty generic Trump insult. (He hurled a similar insult at Rihanna back in 2023, posting that she gave “the single worst Halftime Show in Super Bowl history.”)
Perhaps Trump will post a better comeback to Bad Bunny’s performance once his staffers finish running the transcript of his halftime show through Google Translate. (“Hey Bad Bunny, the Jerk Store called, and they’re running out of you!”)
