Democrats Champion Bad Bunny Super Bowl Halftime Show, Attack Turning Point USA Alternative
Tyler O'Neil /
While President Donald Trump criticized Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show, Democrats celebrated it and ridiculed Turning Point USA’s alternative performance.
Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, whose stage name is Bad Bunny, made headlines at Sunday’s show by performing mostly in Spanish, celebrating his Puerto Rican heritage, and using songs with sexually explicit lyrics. President Donald Trump said, “Nobody understands a word this guy is saying,” and he criticized the dancing as inappropriate for young children.
Turning Point USA announced an alternate Super Bowl halftime show in October, a development growing out of conservative disgust at previous halftime shows.
“When you have the most televised event for the entire year, that should be a reflection of the virtue that hopefully you want society to embody,” Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk says in a video the organization released before the show.
Bad Bunny’s recent speech at the Grammys only exacerbated political divisions when he demanded that Immigration and Customs Enforcement leave Minneapolis.
Democrats largely celebrated Bad Bunny’s Puerto Rican heritage and mocked the Turning Point USA show, which featured Kid Rock.
Democrat Comments
California Gov. Gavin Newsom celebrated Bad Bunny’s performance as “a beautiful moment.”
“Together, we are America,” he wrote on X.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., celebrated the performance as making the Super Bowl the “Boricua bowl,” i.e. Puerto Rican.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani posted a celebration of the show on X. He posted the name of one of Bad Bunny’s songs, “NUEVAYoL,” a Puerto Rican version of New York, with a Puerto Rican flag emoji.
Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, posted an image of Bad Bunny designed like 2008 campaign posters for Barack Obama. “Bad Bunny understood the assignment,” the Democrat wrote.
Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee posted a meme contrasting the estimated 135 million Americans who watched Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show with the 10 million viewers who watched Kid Rock’s performance with Turning Point USA.
When Turning Point USA’s show ran into a snag for streaming on X, Newsom’s press office posted, “Even Elon [Musk] doesn’t want to listen to Kid Rock!”
Turning Point USA
“We’re approaching this show like David and Goliath,” Kid Rock said in a statement ahead of the show. “Competing with the pro football machine and a global pop superstar is almost impossible … or is it?”
Turning Point USA said the show would have “no agenda other than to celebrate faith, family, and freedom.”
The show, which has garnered more than 20 million views on YouTube, featured patriotic songs and tributes to Charlie Kirk.