Category: Politics

The six Democrats who urged military servicemembers in a video not to comply with illegal orders notched a significant legal win when federal prosecutors failed to criminally indict them. Now they’re looking to gain political momentum and build their campaign war chests.

“We are not done,” said Pennsylvania Rep. Chrissy Houlahan at a press conference alongside fellow House members.

“We will continue to push back. The tide is turning and accountability is coming,” Colorado Rep. Jason Crow said in a video posted to social media.

Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin said in a fundraising email: “They tried to indict me.”

The group of Democrats, including two senators and four House members with backgrounds in national security, came out swinging against President Donald Trump and the Justice Department Wednesday for what they said was an abuse of power and a threat against all Americans’ right to freedom of speech. In addition to a flurry of social media posts and two afternoon press conferences, several have been making the cable news rounds and scheduled appearances on high-profile late night TV shows — signs that they see political opportunity in Trump’s attacks and are hoping to bottle that clout.

“Democrats have limited power at the federal level right now and need to leverage every opportunity to capitalize on Trump’s overreach and lawlessness to raise the necessary funds to ensure we have a balance of power at the end of the midterms,” said Democratic strategist Adrienne Elrod. “It takes resources to get our message out, hold Trump to account, and win back seats, and I’m glad these members are seizing on this moment and fighting back.”

As Democrats sharpen their attacks against Trump heading into the midterms, his Justice Department’s unprecedented attempt to prosecute the Democratic lawmakers — most of whom represent crucial battleground states like Michigan, Arizona, and Pennsylvania — has inadvertently elevated their profiles. And the Trump administration, by failing to secure an indictment after months of public sparring with the Democrats and threats from the president, has bolstered their credibility as bare-knuckle fighters who can take on Trump and win.

In this attention-driven political economy, Trump has given a valuable boost to a group of Democrats that includes some with an eye toward future leadership positions in the party – including for Slotkin and Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, who are often discussed as potential future presidential candidates.

“Trump has elevated them by his baseless attacks and his attempt to weaponize the judicial system against them that has flopped so hard,” said Democratic strategist Ian Russell. “That certainly has given them a platform – an even larger platform – as leaders who are focused on keeping our country safe, serving those who serve us, and so forth.”

The six members of Congress released a video on social media late last year urging military servicemembers to ignore illegal orders amid questions about the legality of the Trump administration’s strikes on alleged drug boats from Latin America. That quickly drew Trump’s ire and prompted the launch of an investigation into the group that they lambasted as politically motivated.

The Department of Justice’s failure to indict the Democrats gave them a new opportunity to draw attention.

“Today wasn’t just an embarrassing day for the Administration. It was another sad day for our country,” Slotkin posted on X Tuesday night, as the first reports circulated that a grand jury had rejected the attempt to indict her and five Democratic colleagues.

Slotkin has become one of the party’s most prominent voices as it seeks to chart a path out of the political wilderness. Seizing on the new political attention — which can be hard to come by in a Republican-controlled Washington — she sent a fundraising appeal the next morning, held a press conference, went on TV and sent a barrage of posts on X.

“The investigations kept coming when we were quiet. So, if it’s going to be bad when you’re quiet, you might as well go on offense and have this conversation publicly,” Slotkin said in an interview on MS Now.

The strategy reflects a broader dynamic for the Democratic Party: Trump’s actions often serve as their best fundraising tool. A POLITICO analysis of ActBlue data this week found that many of the party’s largest online fundraising spikes last year came after a Democrat stood up to — or was attacked by — Trump.

“Trump elevating them is the kind of thing that makes Democratic donors, strategists, activists, go, ‘Ah, I like what I see,’” said Russell, the Democratic strategist.

That dynamic has proven especially true for Kelly, who is also in a protracted public battle with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth over the video. Hegseth initiated a review of Kelly’s public comments that could demote the Navy captain’s rank and reduce his retirement pay. Kelly has sued to halt the review.

Kelly has emerged as a top Democratic fundraiser, the POLITICO analysis found, dominating online fundraising for weeks after the Pentagon announced the investigation even though he’s not up for reelection this year.

Shortly before news broke Tuesday night that a grand jury had declined to charge the Democrats, the Arizona senator blasted out another fundraising appeal that nodded to his legal proceedings. “What we need from this team, right now, is the peace of mind that Mark has all the resources he’ll need to stay the course,” said one fundraising email signed by “Team Kelly” on Tuesday.

At least two of the House Democrats investigated by the Justice Department sent similar pleas for cash in recent weeks. Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) – who serves as one of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s recruitment co-chairs – asked supporters for $10 after detailing the federal inquiry opened into the video, and Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) made clear in his own pitch that he would not “be intimidated by any harassment campaign.”

In addition to fundraising appeals and appearances on cable news shows, the House members — which also includes Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire — presented a unified front at a Wednesday press conference, casting the effort as political retribution.

“This was about Donald Trump trying to send a message, a message that if you dare step out of line, if you dare dissent and speak up and push back against his agenda, that you will be crushed,” Crow, the Colorado Democrat, said at the press conference.

Longtime Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson said the failed indictments — and broader message of retribution — gives lawmakers in his party a potent political argument: Democrats were right when they warned that Trump was going to use the justice system for his personal retribution.

“He proved they’re not the boy who cried wolf,” he said. “They’re the meteorologist who predicted the hurricane.”

​Politics

Trump is Pushing Big Tech on Data Center Energy Costs

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​Politics

Most of the nation’s Democratic governors pledged to not attend events hosted by the White House later this month, after President Donald Trump snubbed some state executives amid his ongoing feud with blue states.

POLITICO reported last week that the White House decided to invite only Republicans to a meeting between the president and governors that was timed to the National Governors Association’s annual gathering — a break from its bipartisan past. And while a dinner celebrating governors of both parties was still planned, some Democrats — including Wes Moore of Maryland and Jared Polis of Colorado — confirmed they did not receive an invitation.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that while the White House is the people’s house, “it’s also the president’s home, and so he can invite whomever he wants to dinners and events here at the White House.”

Trump’s decision not to invite Moore — the association’s vice chair — and Polis sparked backlash from Democrats, with 18 sitting governors announcing that they would boycott the dinner.

“If the reports are true that not all governors are invited to these events, which have historically been productive and bipartisan opportunities for collaboration, we will not be attending the White House dinner this year,” the Democratic governors wrote in a joint statement Tuesday. “Democratic governors remain united and will never stop fighting to protect and make life better for people in our states.”

Moore also suggested Sunday that his race may have played a role in the White House’s decision not to invite him to the event.

“It’s not lost on me that I’m the only Black governor in this country, and I find that to be particularly painful, considering the fact that the president is trying to exclude me from an organization that not only my peers have asked me to help to lead, but then also a place where I know I belong in,” he said in an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union.”

POLITICO previously reported that the NGA decided not to sponsor the planned meeting between Trump and the governors once it became clear only Republicans would be invited, with the organization writing in an email to people involved in planning that “no NGA resources will be used to support transportation for this activity.”

Brandon Tatum, the CEO of the NGA, said in a statement last week that the group was “disappointed in the administration’s decision to make it a partisan occasion this year.”

At last year’s annual meeting between Trump and the governors, the president got into an argument with Maine Gov. Janet Mills over his administration’s moves to restrict transgender athletes’ participation in school sports, with Trump ultimately threatening to pull funding and Mills promising to sue.

The NGA has undergone considerable turmoil in the last year, with Democratic governors raising alarm about the association’s unwillingness to more vocally criticize the Trump administration.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker threatened to withdraw from the group over Trump’s decision to deploy other states’ National Guard troops to their states.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, the group’s Republican chair, also criticized the administration’s National Guard deployments, telling The New York Times in an October interview that he worried the president was undermining states’ rights.

In a letter sent Monday by Stitt to other governors and obtained by The Associated Press, he urged members to unite together, writing “the solution is not to respond in kind, but to rise above and to remain focused on our shared duty to the people we serve.”

The New York Times also first reported last week that some Democratic governors weren’t invited to the dinner.

“The President has the discretion to invite whomever he wants to the White House, and he welcomes all those who received an invitation to come, and if they don’t want to, that’s their loss,” Leavitt said of the dinner on Tuesday.

​Politics

A New Hampshire magnate with ties to power players in both parties has appeared in successive batches of the Epstein files, roiling politics in his home state and threatening its two most influential political dynasties.

Documents recently released by the Department of Justice suggest that entrepreneur Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway and other devices, kept in contact with Jeffrey Epstein long after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008, with emails indicating he visited the disgraced financier’s Caribbean island in 2013. Kamen has not been accused of wrongdoing and did not respond to requests for comment through his companies Monday.

The recently released files indicate a closer relationship between the two than was previously known. The disclosures have prompted Kamen’s organizations to launch investigations into their ties. And the situation has ratcheted up scrutiny of the New Hampshire politicians who have worked with him, received campaign contributions from him or helped his organizations secure tens of millions in federal funds.

That includes members of the Shaheen and Sununu families, the best-known and most powerful clans in the state’s Democratic and Republican parties. Both have scions running for Congress this year: House candidate Stefany Shaheen, the daughter of retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), and former Sen. John E. Sununu (R-N.H.), the son of a former governor, who is seeking to return to the Senate.

They now face Epstein-fueled attacks from their lower-polling rivals.

“Anywhere Epstein pops up these days, it’ll become a campaign issue,” said Ryan Williams, a GOP strategist who has worked with Sununu and his father. “And there are certainly politicians who have worked with Kamen in New Hampshire, taken his money and associated with him. And those who did will have to answer for it.”

Kamen is a New Hampshire institution and local celebrity — often described as a quirky one — in a state that has few big-name figures but exerts a powerful hold on the presidential nominating process. The pioneering inventor and entrepreneur who developed the first portable insulin pump and a wheelchair that can climb stairs, Kamen is also widely credited for driving the transformation of Manchester’s old mill district into a technological and health care hub. He was lauded as a “hero” for helping secure 91,000 pounds of protective equipment for first responders and health care workers at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic when such resources were scarce.

Kamen has donated roughly $90,000 to federal candidates and campaign committees on both sides of the aisle over the past four decades, according to federal campaign finance filings. That includes over $7,000 apiece to Sununu, Sen. Shaheen and Kelly Ayotte, the former senator who’s up for reelection as governor this year. Kamen has not made any federal campaign contributions this election cycle, per federal reports.

He’s hosted a raft of high-profile politicians at his businesses and his Bedford home over the years, from Ayotte to then-President George W. Bush. He traveled to Dubai with Sununu’s younger brother, then-Gov. Chris Sununu, in 2019 during a trip in which the two attended the World Government Summit. Chris Sununu, through Airlines for America, the lobbying firm he now leads, did not respond to a request for comment.

Those ties, once promoted in press releases and splashed across social media, have turned into a political liability after successive document drops showed deeper connections between Kamen and Epstein.

Photos released in December show Kamen socializing with Epstein in a tropical location and riding a Segway with Ghislaine Maxwell, the Epstein associate who was convicted of sex trafficking in 2021. Documents released on Jan. 30 showed Kamen made plans to visit Epstein’s Caribbean island in 2013. At the time, assistants sent emails discussing “which flight Dean prefers the girls to be on.” Days later, he wrote to Epstein: “thank you for hosting an incredible visit to [sic] a magical place. It really is almost unbelievable.”

Kamen did not respond to questions from POLITICO about his association with Epstein, including whether he visited Little Saint James. He previously described having “limited interactions” with Epstein in statements to other media outlets and has denied knowledge of his “horrific actions” beyond what he learned from news reports. He told The Boston Globe that Epstein had reached out to him about becoming involved in international development projects but after initial meetings, “it became apparent that his only interest was self-promotion” and “I avoided further meetings.” He did not respond to The Globe’s inquiry about the reference to “the girls.” After the latest tranche of documents was released, he recused himself from board activities of at least four companies he’s involved with as they engage outside law firms to conduct independent investigations into the disclosures.

Williams, the Republican strategist, said “the Epstein episode is the first real blemish that’s marked his reputation in the state, and it’s an extremely hot issue right now.”

EPSTEIN FILES AS A CAMPAIGN CUDGEL

Stefany Shaheen, who is running for New Hampshire’s open House seat and served as chief strategy officer for Kamen’s Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute from September 2018 until last month, is facing intensifying scrutiny over her dealings with Kamen. She has posted photos of her with Kamen on social media over the years, one of the two of them in the cockpit of a plane that was uploaded to LinkedIn seven years ago, and another from a gala for Type 1 Diabetes research last April where she was an honoree. Her campaign said the former was taken during a flight to Washington with others affiliated with ARMI for an American Society Of Mechanical Engineers meeting on June 14, 2018, where Kamen spoke.

She is now facing calls from two of her Democratic primary rivals to publicly condemn Kamen. One of them, Christian Urrutia, has also accused her of potentially helping Kamen craft his statements in response to the files, which she has denied.

“There’s certainly an element of transparency. I think there is a fundamental question of: Do we want our members of Congress and our senators to have these types of relationships?” said Urrutia, who also asked why Sen. Shaheen did not disclose her daughter’s role at ARMI when securing a $1.2 million earmark for the company in 2023. A spokesperson for the senator said that her daughter was paid through non-federal funding sources and that her office was advised by Senate Ethics Committee staff that the request for funding for ARMI did not violate ethics rules.

A Republican running for the seat, state Rep. Brian Cole, has called on the younger Shaheen to drop out: “Until Stefany Shaheen provides full and honest answers about her association with Dean Kamen and ARMI, she should end her campaign,” he said in a statement.

Sununu, who is running to reclaim the Senate seat he lost to Shaheen’s mother in 2008, has faced questions over a possible reference to him in a 2010 email between Epstein and Boris Nikolic, a former Bill Gates adviser. In the email, Epstein emailed Nikolic that “john sununu, has good stories,” but did not provide any additional details. It’s unclear what he meant or whether he was referring to the senator or his father, former governor and White House chief of staff John H. Sununu.

The younger Sununu was a director of operations at Teletrol Systems, one of Kamen’s companies, in the 1990s before he was elected to Congress.

His GOP primary rival, former Sen. Scott Brown, has seized on the email to attack the Sununu family’s “‘insider’ ties” as he attempts to gain traction in a race where the Republican establishment and the president have lined up behind his opponent. Brown said on a local podcast that Sununu “needs to fully explain why” his surname is mentioned in the files. Brown added on X that voters “shouldn’t have to guess who, or which one of their representatives were associated, or what ‘stories’ are being referenced in federal documents.”

The Shaheen and Sununu campaigns have sought to dismiss the criticism from their opponents.

Shaheen said in a statement that she “never advised Dean Kamen on these matters” and that the “extent of my knowledge” about his and Epstein’s relationship is what has been publicly reported. Harrell Kirstein, a spokesperson for her campaign, dismissed the criticism as “desperate political attacks — flat out lies — that ignore basic facts.”

Both Shaheens said they supported outside investigations of Kamen.

Sen. Shaheen said in a statement that Kamen “was right to step back” from his organizations, and that it was appropriate for them “to conduct independent reviews to fully understand his connection to Epstein and take any action merited by the findings of those reviews.”

Stefany Shaheen is the polling leader in the Democratic primary for New Hampshire’s blue-leaning 1st Congressional District, a position operatives in both parties attribute in large part to name recognition. A University of New Hampshire survey from January showed her with 33 percent support, and no other candidate with more than 10 percent, with 39 percent of likely primary voters undecided.

Sununu led Brown by 23 percentage points in the same poll, with 26 percent of likely GOP primary voters undecided. They both trail Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas in hypothetical general-election matchups.

Mike Schrimpf, a spokesperson for Sununu’s campaign, said in a statement that “John had no knowledge whatsoever of any relationship between Dean Kamen and Epstein” and believes the latter “was a despicable human being.” Neither Sununu or his father “have ever met or communicated in any way with Boris Nikolic, Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell.”

He went on to attack Shaheen and Pappas — who, along with other members of the all-Democratic congressional delegation, had touted federal funding for ARMI before the Kamen scandal broke — over their connections to the entrepreneur: “Unlike Chris Pappas who celebrated federal funding for Kamen’s ARMI, or Stefany Shaheen who worked for him last week, John never advocated or requested funding for any of Kamen’s ventures,” Schrimpf said.

Gates MacPherson, a spokesperson for Pappas’ campaign, said in a statement that the congressman “believes Dean Kamen’s relationship with Epstein is deeply troubling and must be independently investigated, and all federal contractors and grant awardees should be held to the highest possible standards, including ARMI and FIRST.”

In the governor’s race, Democrats are preparing to attack Ayotte over Kamen’s past contributions to her campaigns and his appearance in an ad for her 2016 Senate reelection campaign. Ayotte has yet to draw a serious opponent in her bid for a second term. Representatives for the governor did not respond to an email to her official and campaign inboxes seeking comment.

​Politics

Not all Americans’ votes are equal. And some have a way bigger impact than others.

Every four years, a small handful of swing states are bombarded with advertising, candidate visits and more when the country picks the next president, while a majority of other voters are mostly ignored. But even in the key swing states, some House contests, governor’s races and even legislative districts are far more competitive than others.

That’s why the nonpartisan nonprofit Power Moves is rolling out a new Voter Impact Index — the details of which were shared first with POLITICO — to help people take into account their voting power.

“We all learned in elementary school and middle school that every vote counts, and a vote is a vote,” said Heather Weston, one of the group’s co-founders. “But we kind of intuit that that’s not true. So what we really wanted people to understand is how geography really is connected to the impact of your vote.”

The project utilizes all of America’s 41,000-plus zip codes to measure how much of an impact a voter can have, something the organization’s co-founders say is unique to their product.

To get the “Voter Impact” score, which ranges from 0-100, Power Moves has a complex methodology. But in short, it weighs the competitiveness of recent elections in the zip code for six public offices, ranging from the presidency to legislative races — and the higher the score, the more competitive elections an American has the opportunity to vote in.

It weights some of those offices as more important than others. For example, the competitiveness of the presidential election, Senate seat and House district in a given zip code each get 25 percent of the score, while governor’s races get 15 percent and state House and Senate seats only get five percent each.

No individual zip code got either a zero or a 100, based on their methodology. But voters in the Eau Claire, Wisconsin, zip code of 54703 came out on top with a score of 85. And most of Wyoming ties for the lowest score at 14. (Perhaps not coincidentally: The state with the highest statewide average is Wisconsin, and Wyoming is the lowest.)

With more than 40 million Americans moving each year — and some millions of college students moving to new states — the tool is aimed at helping people really understand where their vote can go the furthest.

People move for a variety of factors, and Power Moves emphasized that the tool is not supposed to be the only factor people weigh when deciding their new home. But as home-buying and renting tools like Zillow already factor things like walkability and school systems into their own algorithms, they hope voting can crack that list of priorities. Plus, because of the wonky ways district lines are drawn, apartments and houses that are just minutes apart can garner completely different voting scores.

“We really don’t care what your political stripes are,” said Charles Simon, another co-founder. “We just want to help everybody to understand their vote impact score and give them the opportunity to maximize that score.”

A version of this article first appeared in POLITICO Pro’s Morning Score. Want to receive the newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You’ll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day’s biggest stories.

​Politics

Top state Republicans in Georgia have quietly opened the door for the Republican National Committee to support Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in the state’s hotly contested primary for governor.

The RNC normally maintains strict neutrality in party primaries to let voters — not party leaders — choose its nominee. Any move to intervene in Georgia, however, could dramatically reshape a crowded race for an open governor’s seat in a premiere battleground state. It could give Jones, President Donald Trump’s handpicked choice, a boost in a field that includes Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a target of Trump’s ire ever since he refused to echo the president’s falsehoods about the 2020 election in his state.

Georgia’s three RNC members signed letters late last year and early this year waiving the party rule that bars the RNC from intervening in contested primaries, according to three people familiar with the agreement. That move allows the national party to provide financial or operating support to Jones and coordinate with him ahead of the May primary.

It’s unclear whether the RNC will move to support Jones in the crowded primary now that it’s been cleared to do so. But it was the RNC that first reached out to the Georgia party leaders about waiving the rule, according to a person familiar with the process — a sign the national party has at least considered getting off the sidelines. The RNC did not provide a comment.

Josh McKoon, the chair of the Georgia Republican Party, said he signed the letter waiving the RNC’s neutrality rule because Jones has Trump’s endorsement.

“It was a no-brainer for me to sign the letter,” McKoon told POLITICO.

“From my perspective, I was going to remove any barriers to working with the RNC from a candidate that the president has clearly signaled as the candidate he wants to be the next governor,” he said.

Jones has long been a vocal supporter of Trump. He endorsed him for president in 2015, and as a state senator, was among the 16 Republicans who attempted to serve as electors in 2020 and falsely certify Trump’s loss in Georgia as a win. Jones received Trump’s official endorsement in August, and released a video with Jones last week calling him a “friend” who’s “going to make a great, great governor.”

Limited early public polling shows Jones leading the field, and he maintains a sizable war chest, but the race remains fluid, and a prolonged and expensive primary could complicate Republicans’ general election prospects. RNC support could help Jones fend off rivals and potentially avoid a prolonged primary fight, especially if he can avoid a run-off.

Last week, health care business owner Rick Jackson injected new uncertainty into the race by launching a surprise gubernatorial bid, pledging to spend $50 million of his own money to support his campaign. He has presented himself as a Trump-aligned political outsider, a message that could cut into Jones’ base.

A Cygnal poll released Monday, after Jackson’s surprise campaign launch, found Jones leading with 22 percent support among likely primary voters. Jackson followed at 16 percent, with Raffensperger at 10 percent and Attorney General Chris Carr at 7 percent.

To avoid a June run-off, a candidate must secure an outright majority of the vote in the May 19 primary — a high bar in an increasingly crowded field.

“I can see a path to victory for all four of them right now.” said Jason Shepherd, a former Cobb County GOP chair who is backing Carr. “But Burt Jones’ path to victory just got a lot harder” with Jackson’s entrance.

Under RNC rules, the national party is barred from backing candidates in primaries unless the filing deadline has passed and a candidate is running unopposed. That requirement, known as Rule 11, can be waived if all three of a state’s RNC members sign off. Such Rule 11 agreements have been used sparingly in recent cycles.

State party leaders in North Carolina have green-lit early support for former RNC chair Michael Whatley, another Trump-backed candidate running for the state’s open Senate seat.

Both Georgia and North Carolina are top priorities for the Republican Party in November. In Georgia, Republicans are looking to retain control of the governor’s mansion in a state that Trump flipped in 2024. The steps taken in both states raise questions about whether the RNC could face pressure to take similar moves in other states’ primaries where Trump decides to take sides, such as in Louisiana, where he endorsed Rep. Julia Letlowin her primary challenge against Sen. Bill Cassidy.

“We all look very carefully at when [Trump] decides to weigh in a race, because he doesn’t always do that,” McKoon said. “I certainly didn’t want to be serving as an obstacle to the RNC being able to coordinate with his campaign and provide support.”

Alec Hernández contributed to this report.

​Politics

President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement furiously denounced Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl LX halftime show, denigrating the Puerto Rican superstar and claiming he does not truly represent America.

Trump, who previously called Bad Bunny a “terrible choice” to head up the NFL’s largest annual broadcast, chimed in with complaints about the show’s first-ever mostly-Spanish performance: “Nobody understands a word this guy is saying,” he wrote in a lengthy Truth Social post, calling it “one of the worst, EVER!”

At Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, Bad Bunny delivered a 13-minute homage to his homeland, weaving through a sugarcane field studded with bodegas and a traditional casita. His show was lauded by fans as a vibrant celebration of Puerto Rican heritage — but Trump and MAGA faithfuls weren’t so convinced.

Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, the Puerto Rican-born singer better known as Bad Bunny, made his Super Bowl debut in 2020 alongside Shakira and Jennifer Lopez. But since the NFL announced him as the Super Bowl headliner in September, he became a focal point for conservative ire — thanks, in part, to his high-profile political activism.

An outspoken critic of the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration crackdown, he declared “ICE out” onstage at last week’s Grammy Awards — where his album “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS” made history as the first all-Spanish record to snag the show’s coveted album of the year trophy — and left viewers wondering what message he might have for the millions of football fans tuning into his set.

But Bad Bunny did not directly call out any of the president’s policies or supporters during his Super Bowl show. The only English he spoke during Sunday’s show was him saying, “God bless America,” as he was marching off the field with a procession of Latin and South American flags — led by the U.S.’s flag. He then spiked a football that read: “together, we are America.”

His show also referenced the island’s long-struggling power grid.

In the hours after the performance, MAGA allies took issue with the show’s mostly-Spanish discography and Puerto Rican inspiration.

“Was a single word of English spoken during the Super Bowl Halftime Show?” Nick Adams, Trump’s pick to become ambassador to Malaysia, wrote on X. “Someone needs to tell Bad Bunny he’s in America. This is an abomination.”

Far-right influencer Laura Loomer railed against his set in a series of X posts, urging border czar Tom Homan to deploy an immigration raid on site.

“There’s nothing American about any of this,” she wrote. “This isn’t White enough for me. Cant even watch a Super Bowl anymore because immigrants have literally ruined everything.”

Meanwhile, MAGA-friendly influencer Jake Paul urged his X followers to “turn off this halftime,” decrying Bad Bunny as a “fake American citizen performing who publicly hates America.” Paul, who was recently seen with Vice President JD Vance at the Olympics in Milan, received swift blowback online, including from Paul’s own brother, Logan.

Many, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), pointed out that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens — and that Paul himself has been living there since 2021.

Other figures within the president’s orbit echoed their disapproval. Former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino reacted to Bad Bunny’s performance in a podcast episode on Rumble titled “Kid Rock > Sad Bunny,” telling viewers the show “sucked.” Meanwhile, Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights, wrote on X that she and her family “aren’t watching him.”

Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) called the show “disgusting” and said it violated broadcast standards, writing on X that he plans to send a letter to FCC Chair Brendan Carr demanding a review.

“Had he said these lyrics — and all of the other disgusting and pornographic filth in English on live TV, the broadcast would have been pulled down and the fines would have been enormous,” Fine wrote. “Lock them up.”

Conservatives did rally behind alternative programming. Turning Point USA, the conservative organizing group founded by Charlie Kirk, aired a rival halftime show headlined by longtime Trump ally Kid Rock, drawing support from Republican officials including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and House Speaker Mike Johnson, who praised the event.

​Politics