With characteristic cruelty, the Trump administration has suggested Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will be present at the 2026 Super Bowl. “[There] is nowhere that you can provide safe haven to people in this country illegally. Not the Super Bowl and nowhere else,” Corey Lewandowski, an advisor to the Department of Homeland Security, said on The Benny Show podcast Wednesday (via Deadline). “We will find you, we will apprehend you, we will put you in a detention facility, and we will deport you. So know that that is a very real situation under this administration, which is completely contrary to how it used to be.”
Lewandowski’s comments come after Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny was chosen as the performer for the Super Bowl Halftime Show. Bad Bunny had previously declined to tour in the mainland U.S., partly out of the fear that “fucking ICE could be outside [my concert].” But when tapped to play the Super Bowl, the artist joked that “after discussing it with my team, I think I’ll do just one date in the United States.” In his remarks on the podcast, Lewandowski complained that “it’s so shameful that they’ve decided to pick somebody who just seems to hate America so much to represent them at the halftime game.”
Beyond his critiques of the Trump administration and support for immigrants, there’s little evidence that Bad Bunny “hates America.” But conservatives love a culture war. Podcast host Benny Johnson prompted Lewandowski to speak on the Super Bowl after posting online that Bad Bunny is “anti-Trump,” while far-right activist and conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, blamed “Barack Obama’s best friend Jay-Z” for picking the performer (via Forbes). And in typical xenophobic fashion, many of these figures are put out that Bad Bunny’s lyrics are in Spanish. “No songs in English should not be allowed at one of America’s highest rated television events of the year … not just for sports,” Danica Patrick posted on social media (via The New York Post).
Despite the xenophobia baked into these complaints, Johnson also argued on the podcast that Bad Bunny’s anti-ICE stance is an example of “cognitive dissonance” because he’s an American citizen of Puerto Rico. Lewandowski agreed, while also lamenting the infiltration of “wokeness” in sports. He further doubled down on the threat of ICE raids at football’s biggest game. “I don’t care if it’s a concert for Johnny Smith or Bad Bunny or anybody else,” he said. “We’re going to do enforcement everywhere. We are going to make Americans safe. That is a directive from the president. If you’re in this country illegally, do yourself a favor: Go home.”
