The Super Bowl halftime show has become a political battleground in recent years.
Artists use America's biggest stage to make statements that generate controversy and headlines.
And Bad Bunny snuck hidden political messages into his Super Bowl performance that have Trump seeing red.
Sugar cane fields and independence flags send clear message
Bad Bunny made history as the first male solo Latin artist to headline the Super Bowl halftime show at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara.
But the Puerto Rican superstar didn't just deliver a musical performance — he packed the show with subtle political symbolism that most Americans completely missed.
The elaborate performance began with Bad Bunny commanding the field from a staged sugar cane plantation.
The imagery was a deliberate homage to Puerto Rico's history of sugar slavery that runs deep throughout the Caribbean.
Bad Bunny waved a Puerto Rican flag during the performance, but eagle-eyed viewers noticed something specific about the flag's color.
The artist appeared to be holding a flag with a lighter blue shade — a color associated with Puerto Rico's pro-independence movement.
This is the same flag Bad Bunny has featured in previous music videos and live performances while backing candidates who support Puerto Rico's separation from the United States.
The stage design included imagery of exploding power grids, a nod to the island's frequent and prolonged blackouts.
Hurricane Maria in 2017 knocked out Puerto Rico's power grid for months and 2022's Hurricane Fiona disabled the entire grid for weeks.
Bad Bunny released a documentary in 2022 titled El Apagon — The Power Outage in English — focused on these ongoing electricity problems.
At one point, the glaring words "The only thing more powerful than hate is love" flashed across the video screen behind him.
He then held a football to the camera with the words "Together we are America."
Bad Bunny avoids direct ICE mention after Grammy outburst
Bad Bunny performed entirely in Spanish and introduced himself to the crowd with his full name — Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio.
The artist told the crowd to "believe in yourself" before shouting out countries across North, South and Latin America as performers rushed onto the field carrying those nations' flags.
The final countries named were the United States and Canada before he closed with a tribute to his home territory.
"And my motherland, Puerto Rico," Bad Bunny said.
His compatriot Ricky Martin appeared to perform the hit track Lo que le paso a Hawaii — what happened to Hawaii in English.
In that track, Bad Bunny sings "I don't want them to do to you what they did to Hawaii."
The lyrics speak out against America's rule of the territory and supposed gentrification in Puerto Rico.
Bad Bunny avoided mentioning Immigration and Customs Enforcement directly during his set.
This came after he forcefully spoke out against the federal agency when he won three Grammys on February 1.
"Before I say thanks to God, I'm going to say: ICE Out," the Puerto Rican star declared while receiving his first award.
During the halftime show, Bad Bunny offered one of his Grammys to a young boy watching television.
Some fans erroneously believed the child was Liam Conejo Ramos, the five-year-old detained in Minnesota by ICE agents last month and later released.
Trump calls performance "slap in the face to our country"
President Trump slammed Bad Bunny's performance as "absolutely terrible" and "one of the worst, EVER" in a Truth Social post.
"It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn't represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence," Trump wrote.
He added that "nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting, especially for young children that are watching from throughout the U.S.A., and all over the World."
Trump called the show "just a 'slap in the face' to our Country" and predicted it would "get great reviews from the Fake News Media, because they haven't got a clue of what is going on in the REAL WORLD."
The President was right to call out what happened Sunday night.
The NFL handed over America's biggest cultural stage to an artist who has spent years promoting Puerto Rican independence and attacking U.S. immigration enforcement.
Bad Bunny wasn't celebrating American culture — he was using American airwaves to push separatist politics while 100 million people watched.
Think about the calculated deception involved here.
Bad Bunny carefully avoided direct ICE attacks during the Super Bowl after his Grammy outburst the week before.
He knew exactly where the line was and danced right up to it with coded symbols and foreign language messaging that flew over most viewers' heads.
The sugar cane fields, the independence flag, the Hawaii song lyrics — all carefully chosen political statements wrapped in what the NFL sold as entertainment.
This is how the Left operates.
They can't win the culture war through honest debate, so they sneak their messaging into spaces where Americans let their guard down.
Sports used to be the one place where politics didn't intrude, where families could gather without the constant cultural warfare.
Those days are gone thanks to the NFL's decision to turn the Super Bowl halftime show into a platform for anti-American activism.
Bad Bunny endorsed Juan Dalmau of the Puerto Rican Independence Party in the 2024 gubernatorial election, helping the independence movement achieve second place for the first time in history.
He joined street protests demanding Puerto Rico's governor resign in 2019 and has used his music to attack gentrification by mainland Americans.
The NFL knew exactly who they were booking.
Millions of NFL fans made the right choice by watching Turning Point USA's "all-American" Super Bowl halftime show instead.
The show honored Charlie Kirk, the conservative icon who was assassinated in September.
Kid Rock headlined the performance, with Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice and Gabby Barrett delivering the patriotic entertainment Americans actually wanted.
More than five million watched the TPUSA show at its peak — proof that there's massive appetite for entertainment that celebrates America instead of tearing it down.
President Trump attended a watch party in Florida instead of watching the game.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump "would much prefer a Kid Rock performance over Bad Bunny."
That's because Trump understands what too many corporate executives refuse to acknowledge — the American people are sick of having leftist politics shoved down their throats during what's supposed to be the country's biggest celebration.
The NFL owes its fans an explanation for why they thought this was acceptable.
Sources:
- Wilko Martinez-Cachero, "All the hidden political messages in Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show," Daily Mail, February 9, 2026.
- Rolling Stone, "My People Need Me!!! And I Need Them: Bad Bunny's Political Awakening in Puerto Rico," January 2026.
- LA Progressive, "Why Bad Bunny Matters," February 9, 2026.
- ABC News, "How Super Bowl halftime moments like the 'wardrobe malfunction' became flashpoints," February 2026.
- Hollywood Reporter, "Trump Calls Bad Bunny's Super Bowl Halftime Show 'Disgusting'," February 9, 2026.
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