House Speaker Mike Johnson weighed in on the political debate over booking Bad Bunny to perform at the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show, saying it was “a terrible decision” — echoing the beliefs of President Donald J. Trump, who has already established his own antipathy toward Bad Bunny.
Johnson made a constructive contribution to who he believed should have been chosen to perform by producer Roc Nation at the halftime show: The Republican leader said ’80s country star Lee Greenwood would have been America’s clear and obvious preference, citing “a broader audience.”
Asked about the controversy outside the House, Johnson admitted that the globally popular entertainer who had just hosted “Saturday Night Live” this weekend wasn’t really on his radar, but said he knew it was a bad decision anyway.
“I didn’t even know who Bad Bunny was. But it seems like a terrible decision, in my opinion, from what I hear,” Johnson said. When asked why, the speaker replied: “It seems like he’s not someone who speaks to a wider audience. »
Johnson added: “And there are so many eyes on the Super Bowl – a lot of impressionable young kids. And, in my opinion, you would have Lee Greenwood, or role models, who would do that. Not someone like that.”
Johnson did not mention, as other Bad Bunny detractors have, that a bone of contention for some conservatives is that the Puerto Rican artist sings exclusively in Spanish. The singer has also been criticized by the right for recently saying that after a record-breaking residency in Puerto Rico, he would not tour the continental United States anytime soon due to the possibility that it would lead to ICE raids on his crowds. That fear was all but confirmed when Trump administration officials said ICE would be at the Super Bowl in force, in response to Bad Bunny getting the spotlight.
On Monday, the president took a similar stance to Johnson’s — also stating that while he knew nothing about Bad Bunny, he knew his appearance would nonetheless be a parody. Responding to a question from a NewsMax host who said “the NFL just picked the Bad Bunny Rabbit, or whatever his name is,” Trump responded: “I’ve never heard of him. I don’t know who he is. I don’t know why they’re doing that. It’s crazy. … I think it’s absolutely ridiculous.”
Other members of the administration said they had a better idea of who Bad Bunny was and that it affected plans for ICE to be present in force at the Super Bowl. After the halftime reservation announcement, Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem both indicated that agents would be deployed on the ground to pick up undocumented migrants. When asked specifically about Bad Bunny’s NFL booking, Noem responded, “Well, they suck and we’ll win, and God will bless us and we’ll be standing tall and proud of ourselves at the end of the day, and they won’t be able to sleep at night because they don’t know what they believe. And they’re so weak, we’ll fix it.”
During the meeting in the halls of the House on Tuesday, the speaker was asked about Bad Bunny by Pablo Manríquez, who runs the immigrant news outlet Migrant Insider.
Bad Bunny has charted more than 100 songs on the Hot 100 in the United States, including the No. 1 single “I Like It.” His last four albums have all debuted at number one on the US Billboard chart. The most recent, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos”, debuted at number 2 on the Billboard 200 in January with 122,000 units, then climbed to number 1 with 203,500 units the following week.
