Bad Bunny is American; Coldplay is not. Still,

President Trump told the New York Post that music artist Bad Bunny was a “terrible choice” to headline the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show and that the NFL’s choice of the Puerto Rican singer and rapper sows “hatred.”

Department of Homeland Security adviser Corey Lewandowski recommended that Bad Bunny loathes the U.S. “It’s so shameful that they’ve decided to pick somebody who just seems to hate America so much to represent them at the halftime game,” he told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said on Monday that Bad Bunny disseminates “anti-American propaganda.”

The upshot: Bad Bunny (aka Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) is an enemy of the state. An outsider who doesn’t possess American values. A Super Bowl wrecker.

Heated debate around who is worthy to carry out the halftime show is an American custom (Prince, yes. The Red Hot Chili Peppers, no). But now, unsurprisingly, politics are half of that debate, so the mere fact that Bad Bunny is brown and Latino and sings in Spanish is seen by some as an affront to the correct. Clearly the “Woke Bowl” is disrespecting the tough-on-immigration president, and in Español, no less.

But Bad Bunny is an American citizen, as are most people born in Puerto Rico after 1898, thanks to the Jones-Shafroth Act of 1917. Bad Bunny, born in 1994, made the deadline with 96 years to spare. If the concern is that foreigners are coming right here to take our jobs and destroy beloved American traditions, there are a lot of nonnative artists to grouse about.

For many years, outsiders have foisted their international music upon us at the Super Bowl between commercials for Doritos and Budweiser.

The United Kingdom’s Phil Collins performed the 2000 Super Bowl XXXIV Halftime Show, as did Enrique Iglesias, who is from Spain. The Irishmen of U2 stole jobs away from Americans when they performed the 2002 Super Bowl. The following yr it was sneaky Canadian Shania Twain and a sus character from England referred to only as Sting.

Then got here unhealthy hombre after unhealthy hombre from the UK: Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Coldplay. And don’t even get me began on Shakira, gyrating her Colombian self into 2020’s Super Bowl LIV Halftime Show, or the next yr, the Weeknd utilizing his candy voice to distract from the fact he’s Canadian.

Remember all the anti-immigrant furor around those aforementioned performances? Of course not — because there was none. And this yr, if the delicately reunited U.Okay. duo Oasis was to pull issues together for 2026 and play the Super Bowl, it most actually wouldn’t inspire the same sort of vitriol.

The proper remembers that Bad Bunny criticized the Trump administration for its handling of Puerto Rico’s hurricane recovery, and that that he has spoken out against ICE’s inhumane treatment of immigrants. But calling Bad Bunny a dissenter is too direct, too Stalinist. It’s better to solid doubt upon the singer’s loyalty to America via thinly veiled racist rhetoric.

Turning Point USA, the right-wing group based by Charlie Kirk and helmed by his spouse, Erika Kirk, following his assassination, has organized its own counter-concert called the “All-American Halftime Show”. It will star rap-rocker Kid Rock and nation artists Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice and Gabby Barrett. The show is counter-programmed to compete with the Super Bowl halftime show, airing on X and conservative networks such as TBN and OAN around the same time as Bad Bunny’s set.

When the “alternative” show’s lineup was announced this week, Kid Rock took a jab at Bad Bunny in a assertion: “He’s said he’s having a dance party, wearing a dress, and singing in Spanish? Cool. We plan to play great songs for folks who love America.”

Kid Rock isn’t identified to put on attire on stage, as Bad Bunny has achieved, but it’s unclear which songs of his he’ll play in the identify of “loving America.”

Turning Point spokesman Andrew Kolvet said the show will mirror conservative values such as “faith, family, and freedom,” so Kid Rock seemingly received’t carry out his 2001 monitor “Cool, Daddy Cool,” where he sings “Young ladies, young ladies, I like ‘em underage see / Some say that’s statutory, but I say it’s mandatory.” It’s also unlikely he’ll bust out his 2007 track “Lowlife (Living the Highlife)”: “I make Black music for the white man / Keep cocaine upon my nightstand.”

One factor is sure: He’ll continue to sing Trump’s praises, in English.