President Donald Trump is putting in his two cents on Bad Bunny performing at the Super Bowl. On September 28, the NFL announced that Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny will be the 2026 Super Bowl halftime performer.
Following the announcement, a wave of backlash has been directed at the “Monaco” artist, with the common complaint being that his songs are in Spanish, his native language. To add more fuel to the fire, Trump also shared his opinion on the NFL's decision during his appearance on Greg Kelly Reports on Tuesday (Oct. 7).
“This guy does not seem like a unifying entertainer, and a lot of folks don’t even know who he is,” Kelly said.
“I never heard of him. I don’t know who he is,” Trump responded. “I don’t know why they’re doing it, it’s crazy, and then they blame it on some promoter that they hired to pick up entertainment. I think it’s absolutely ridiculous.”
Elsewhere in the interview Trump suggested that people should be “blowing off the NFL” as a response to the league's decision.
Bad Bunny faces backlash for Super Bowl halftime show announcement
Trump's opinion follows social media users and athletes who have an issue with Bad Bunny's upcoming Super Bowl performance. Former race car driver, Danica Patrick, shared her thoughts on Bad Bunny being selected.
“I don’t have any problem with someone performing at halftime that is not from the United States, although Bad Bunny is technically a citizen because he was born in Puerto Rico,” she told Steve Bannon's War Room podcast on Friday, Oct. 3. “He wasn’t necessarily born in America. I don’t care where you’re actually born. What I care about is that I can sing along to the music. His music is almost nothing in English.”
She added, “I don’t think it will be as much fun. I don’t think it will be as uniting. What I would hate to see is that it would divide us again, in yet another way.”
She suggested that there should be an alternate Super Bowl halftime show made so that others can sing a long.
Patrick's opinion follows the Trump administration threatening to have ICE outside of the Super Bowl — something that Bad Bunny took into consideration while planning his Debí Tirar Más Fotos World Tour and decided against performing in the States and only in Puerto Rico.
“There were many reasons why I didn’t show up in the U.S., and none of them were out of hate — I’ve performed there many times. All of [the shows] have been successful. All of them have been magnificent,” the rapper told i-D in September.
“But there was the issue of — like, f—ing ICE could be outside [my concert],” he added. “And it’s something that we were talking about and very concerned about.”
While he's been in the debate across several mediums over the past two weeks, the artist has been keeping an optimistic spirit and even joked about it during his Saturday Night Live hosting gig over the weekend.
During his monologue, he addressed “all the Latinos and Latinas in the entire world and here in the United States” in Spanish by saying, “More than being an accomplishment of mine, it’s an accomplishment for everybody, demonstrating that our mark and our contribution to this country will never be able to be removed or erased by anybody,” he said in Spanish.
He added, in English, poking fun at those criticizing the fact that his songs are in Spanish, “If you didn’t understand what I just said, you have four months to learn.”
Bad Bunny will make history as the first Latino male to perform solo at the Super Bowl.
The 2026 Super Bowl will be on Feb. 8 in Santa Clara, California.
