Key points
Donald Trump says he will not attend the Super Bowl this year.
Trump made history last year when he became the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl.
He also condemned Super Bowl performers Bad Bunny and Green Day: “I think it’s a terrible choice. All it does is sow hatred.”
President Trump is skipping the Super Bowl.
The commander in chief, who last year became the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl, says he won’t watch the 2026 game in person at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. next month.
“It’s just too far away,” he told the New York Post. “I would. I’ve [gotten] great hands [at] the Super Bowl. They like me.”
He added, “I would go if, you know, it was a little bit shorter.”
Mandel NGAN / AFP via Getty
President Donald Trump
Trump also bashed Bad Bunny, who will perform for the big game’s halftime show, and Green Day, who recently announced that they would play at its opening ceremony.
“I’m anti-them,” Trump said of the musicians. “I think it’s a terrible choice. All it does is sow hatred. Terrible.”
Trump criticized the NFL’s decision to enlist Bad Bunny for the halftime show in October.
“I’ve never heard of him… I don’t know who he is,” the president said in an interview last year. “I don’t know why they’re doing it. It’s crazy. And then they blame it on some promoter they hired to pick up entertainment — I think it’s absolutely ridiculous.”
The Puerto Rican musician was the most streamed artist on Spotify in 2025, but he said he avoided bringing his Debi Tirar Mas Fotos World Tour to the continental United States due to concerns that ICE would target his concerts.
“There were many reasons why I didn’t show up in the U.S., and none of them were out of hate — I’ve performed there many times,” he said in September. “All of [the shows] have been successful. All of them have been magnificent. I’ve enjoyed connecting with Latinos who have been living in the U.S. But there was the issue of, like, f—ing ICE could be outside [my concert]. And it’s something that we were talking about and very concerned about.”
RICARDO ARDUENGO/AFP via Getty
Bad Bunny performs at the first show of his residency at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on July 11, 2025
Bad Bunny’s fears were confirmed when Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced that she would send ICE to the Super Bowl in February. “We’ll be all over that place,” she said. “We’re going to enforce the law.”
The rapper previously used a Trump soundalike to deliver a pro-immigrant message in the music video for his song “NuevaYol.”
“I made a mistake,” the fake Trump said in the video. “I want to apologize to the immigrants in America. I mean the United States, I know America is the whole continent. I want to say that this country is nothing without the immigrants. This country is nothing without Mexicans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Colombians, Venezuelans, Cubans.”
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Billie Joe Armstrong performs with Green Day in 2024
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Green Day has repeatedly antagonized Trump and the Republican Party in performances of their anti-establishment tracks “American Idiot” and “Jesus of Suburbia.” In 2024, lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong showed off a Trump mask with “IDIOT” written on it at a concert in Washington, D.C.
Armstrong has also frequently changed the lyrics to “American Idiot,” singing, “I’m not a part of the MAGA agenda,” and has chanted, “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA” during “Bang Bang.” The frontman has also compared Trump to Hitler.
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