President Donald Trump and his allies’ attacks on Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show have set off an internal feud among MAGA influencers.
The 31-year-old Puerto Rican star, Spotify’s most-played artist of 2025, made history as the first performer to deliver a Super Bowl halftime show entirely in Spanish, during what is normally the most-watched television broadcast in the U.S. Despite speaking out against Trump’s hardline immigration policies a week earlier, Bad Bunny stuck to a powerful message of unity in his Super Bowl performance, with a billboard reading, “The only thing more powerful than hate is love,” and a football emblazoned with the phrase, “Together, We Are America.”
Trump nonetheless slammed the show on Truth Social as “absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER!” He added, “Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting.”
Not all conservatives agreed, however.
“Bad Bunny had the biggest stage in the world and could’ve made it political. He didn’t. He chose unity & love,” wrote MAGA influencer Emily Austin. “You can celebrate different backgrounds and still love this country.”
Trump’s former press aide Harrison Fields, who left the White House last year, hit back at claims the halftime choice was un-American: “Last time I checked, my Puerto Rico-born grandmother was a full American citizen — and she voted for Trump,” he wrote.
Former Trump campaign official Vianca Rodriguez said she “loved” the show and criticized MAGA fans for complaining: “Way to go alienating your Puerto Rican conservative base.”
Meanwhile, FBI Director Kash Patel’s singer-girlfriend Alexis Wilkins suggested the GOP needed to “get on better messaging” after the controversy surrounding Bad Bunny. “We all thought Bad Bunny was going to come out in a dress that said ICE OUT - but he didn’t. This would’ve all been easier to message if he did. They’re pulling the unity trope and we can’t let them have it,” she wrote on X.
Even MAGA-friendly influencer Logan Paul took issue with his brother Jake’s post on X in which he called Bad Bunny a “fake American citizen” who “hates America.”
“I love my brother but I don’t agree with this,” he wrote. “Puerto Ricans are Americans & I’m happy they were given the opportunity to showcase the talent that comes from the island.”
But not all of MAGA disagreed with Trump. Right-wing commentator Tomi Lahren criticized Bad Bunny, claiming he was “not an American artist,” despite Puerto Ricans being U.S. citizens. Fox Business Network correspondent Charles Gasparino admitted he only “peeked” at Bad Bunny’s show and bluntly declared he “sucked.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth abandoned the performance in favor of Kid Rock.
Rather than watch the Super Bowl halftime show, some Trump supporters said they chose the “All-American Halftime Show,” a conservative counterprogram organized by Turning Point USA, headlined by Kid Rock—whose performance was mocked for heavy lip-syncing.
House Speaker Mike Johnson told the immigration-focused newsletter Migrant Insider that he would have preferred an entertainer who represents “traditional American values.” Meanwhile, Laura Loomer demanded the NFL apologize for “flooding the Super Bowl with foreign flags,” and in another tweet, she tagged border czar Tom Homan, calling for ICE to conduct a raid at the show’s site.
A Quinnipiac University poll conducted in October found that nearly half of respondents (48 percent) approved of the league’s decision to feature Bad Bunny, while 29 percent disapproved. Support varied sharply across partisan, generational, and racial lines, with Democrats (74 percent), young people (64 percent), and Hispanic adults (65 percent) far more likely to express approval.
