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President Trump will be tuning in. So will Vice President JD Vance, Franklin Graham and a host of other conservatives who are protesting Bad Bunny’s performance at the Super Bowl halftime show.
Turning Point USA, outraged by a flippant remark from the Puerto Rican rapper about people having to learn Spanish to watch his performance, decided to launch its own show, starring Kid Rock.
It’s the conservative movement’s “shot across the bow” in the culture wars but it’s also a tribute to Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk, his close friend Andrew Kolvet told The Post.
Kirk, who was assassinated in 2025, regularly took to social media to comment on the Super Bowl halftime show, going back over a decade to 2014, where he would weigh in on what he saw as inappropriate programming during a major American television event.
“Charlie was so fixated and obsessed with the halftime show, he understood that it was ground zero … the frontline fight [in changing culture],” Kolvet told The Post.
“This was just like a weird fixation for Charlie,” he said, adding Kirk’s goal was to “win the culture.”
“So we were like let’s go. Let’s do it. Let’s put on a show that the whole family can enjoy, that’ll be awesome, well-produced, excellent, big name songs, big name artists,” he said.
Trump is supportive. He’ll be watching at his Super Bowl party in Palm Beach on Sunday and there’s chatter he may have a surprise for Turning Point viewers.
“The president would much prefer a Kid Rock performance over Bad Bunny,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday. The White House offered no further details.
Their halftime show of choice will headline Kid Rock. Country singers Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice and Gabby Barrett will also perform at the event, which can be viewed on YouTube, X, Rumble and conservative networks like TBN and Real America’s Voice.
Kid Rock praised Turning Point for recognizing there was a large portion of the country underserved by many Hollywood offerings.
“We’re just going to go play for our base,” he told Fox News. “People who love America, love football, love Jesus, and it’s pretty much that simple.”
The NFL’s decision to bring in Bad Bunny to perform at one of music’s biggest events became a flashpoint in America’s culture war.
The Puerto Rican rapper has used his platform to criticize the Trump administration and its policies, including with his acceptance speech at the Grammys where he declared: “ICE out” – a derogatory phrase against Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents.
The announcement of his Super Bowl performance sparked outrage and he stoked the flames, joking on “Saturday Night Live” in October that if fans don’t understand him speaking in Spanish, “You have four months to learn!”
Bunny, who has a huge Spanish language following, later tried to walk back the remarks, saying “people only have to worry about dance.”
In the meantime, the NFL hired another band to perform with him: Green Day.
But that added more fuel to the cultural fire. Green Day is known for its support of the Trump resistance movement.
President Trump told the New York Post, in an exclusive interview in the Oval Office, he wouldn’t watch the Super Bowl halftime event, citing the performances of Bad Bunny and Green Day.
“I’m anti-them. I think it’s a terrible choice. All it does is sow hatred. Terrible,” Trump said.
He later said he’d tune into the Turning Point show. Vance also offered his support, writing on X:
“Fantastic lineup for the TPUSA halftime show, including the great Bob Ritchie AKA KID ROCK.”
And Franklin Graham also criticized the NFL, writing on social media “the halftime shows began pushing moral boundaries and have become more and more sexualized.” He said he’d be watching TPUSA’s event with the “agenda of celebrating family, faith, and freedom!”
Performing in the Superbowl halftime show is an unparalleled opportunity for a musician. Although unpaid, it puts the artist in front of millions of viewers and can be a career-defining moment.
But it’s also been a fertile ground for controversy. In 2019, the Federal Communications Commission threatened to get involved when Justin Timberlake infamously exposed Janet Jackson’s breast at the end of their performance. Jennifer Lopez, in 2020, featured caged children on stage to criticize U.S. immigration policies.
Kolvet said he understood Americans’ frustration with the official show.
“Red blooded Americans love the NFL. They love sports. And yet this, this thing that should be ours, like it increasingly wasn’t ours,” he noted.
And Kid Rock pointed out their alternative program wasn’t born out of hate.
“None of us are approaching this with any hate in our hearts at all. It’s just a love for our base and love for music, our country and everything else.”
English (US)