Conservatives are battling one another over Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance and the political wisdom of President Trump’s criticism of the Puerto Rican superstar as the GOP sees signs it is quickly losing Hispanic support in polls.
President Trump blasted Bad Bunny’s performance as an “affront” to the United States and “one of the worst of the worst,” and his criticisms were echoed by a number of those in the MAGA movement.
“It makes no sense, is 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,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
But there were notable dissents to Trump’s criticism of one of the most popular musical artists in the world.
And some of those criticisms themselves touched on politics and conservative themes.
Caroline Sunshine, a deputy communications director during Trump’s presidential run who worked in Trump’s first administration, praised Bad Bunny’s performance for featuring a real wedding ceremony on stage.
“Unpopular but interesting take: there was only one Super Bowl halftime show this year that highlighted the institution of marriage. And it wasn’t the Turning Point halftime show,” Sunshine wrote, referring to a counterprogramming event featuring Kid Rock that was sponsored by the conservative group.
Former Trump staffer Harrison Fields did not directly address Bad Bunny’s performance, but he touted his own ties to Puerto Rico in a post on the social platform X.
“Last time I checked, my Puerto Rico-born grandmother was a full American citizen—and she voted for Trump,” Fields said, later posting a picture with the U.S. territory’s “REPUBLICAN” Gov. Jenniffer González-Colón at Trump’s inauguration last year.
Culture wars have at times been political winners for Trump and the GOP, but the debate over Bad Bunny and the halftime show comes as polls show Trump and Republicans are losing Hispanic support, a key strength for the president in the 2024 election.
While Trump lost Hispanic voters to Vice President Kamala Harris by 20 points in 2024, that’s a jump from 2020, when Trump lost the category to former President Biden by 30 points, according to an election analysis of exit polling from The Associated Press, Fox News, and MSNBC.
Trump’s disapproval rating with Latinos now stands at 70 percent, according to November data from the Pew Research Center. Of those Latinos who voted for Trump, 81 percent said they approved of his job performance, down from 93 percent at the beginning of his second term.
Mike Madrid, a Trump critic and Republican strategist who specializes in Latino voting behavior and trends, questioned the calculus of fighting over Bad Bunny in front of tens of millions of Americans.
“If the Republicans don’t stop the hemorrhaging with young, male Latinos thirty [years old] and younger, they’re cooked,” Madrid said. “This shows that they’re not even aware of the size of the problem that they have.”
Bad Bunny’s performance was largely a celebration of Latin America and its culture, featuring scenes of sugar fields in a nod to the performer’s native Puerto Rico; old men playing dominos; and vendors selling tacos, coco frio, and piraguas.
At the conclusion of the show, Bad Bunny marched ahead of a parade of flags from the Western Hemisphere as he named every country located in the Americas.
“Bad Bunny and a USA flag? YES PLEASE,” conservative commentator and sports journalist Emily Austin said on X, adding in a separate post that criticisms over his ethnicity were “weak.”
Sunday night’s performance was less outwardly political than Bad Bunny’s acceptance speech at the Grammy Awards earlier this month, where he denounced Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say: ICE out,” he said. “We’re not savages. We’re not animals. We’re not aliens.”
The criticism galvanized MAGA to come out en masse to condemn the remarks, but halftime show opinions were noticeably more mixed.
Austin later addressed the divide among conservatives in a post on X, noting that she lost followers over her posts in support of the performance.
“Not everyone who loves America and loves our President thinks the same way on everything. Different perspectives and shared love of our country is our strength,” Austin said.
One of the chief criticisms of the performance from a number of conservatives was that the majority of it was in Spanish instead of English.
“To have a fully Spanish-language halftime show, with no subtitles, isn’t inclusive. It’s exclusive,” Rep. Maria Salazar (R-Fla.) said in a post on X.
“Unfortunately, today, instead of talking about the great contributions Hispanics make to our country—the legal ones and the undocumented—we are debating how poorly this event missed the mark,” she said.
But some conservatives questioned the political wisdom of that line of attack.
“The grifter influencers who jumped on this are the worst people to handle a topic that requires nuance,” Giancarlo Sopo, a conservative media strategist and cultural writer told The Hill
“The real issue with Bad Bunny’s performance isn’t that he sang in Spanish. It’s that the show was loaded with political subtext that flew over most people’s heads, not to mention that he’s hardly an ideal representative of Latino culture. Making this about language is politically asinine,” he continued.
Bad Bunny’s performance even seemed to divide some MAGA-friendly families.
Jake Paul, the boxer, described Bad Bunny as a “fake American citizen” and said on social media that people should turn away from the performance, which his own brother, the influencer and wrestler Logan Paul, publicly took issue with.
“I love my brother but I don’t agree with this,” Logan Paul, who like Bad Bunny has performed with the WWE, wrote on X. “Puerto Ricans are Americans & I’m happy they were given the opportunity to showcase the talent that comes from the island.”
Conservative media personality Meghan McCain also defended the performance in a post on X, saying “everything in life doesn’t have to be ruined by politics.”
“I’m sorry but I just genuinely question your taste level if you didn’t enjoy the Bad Bunny halftime show,” McCain wrote on the platform.
