Good Bunny. Bad Super Bowl. Defund ICE.
Political lessons from the wide world of sports. And music.
Super Bowl LX was a real clunker1—say it with us now: FAAAKE MAAAYE!—but at least we got some sizzle from Bad Bunny’s halftime show, which featured Ricky Martin and Lady Gaga, an (apparently actual?) wedding, dancers dressed as bushes and electrical linemen, and an appeal to hemispheric unity featuring the flags of every American country, and a football inscribed with the slogan “Together, We Are America.”
Not everybody was impressed, however. “The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER!” Donald Trump raged on Truth Social. “It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn’t represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence.” He went on like that for a while, but you get the idea.
Programming note: No Triad today; back tomorrow. Happy Monday.
Be Like Bad Bunny
by William Kristol
Tbh, the big sports weekend was a bit of a letdown.
Did anyone really watch Super Bowl LX to the end? And when you turned on Winter Olympics XXV, more often than not what you saw was . . . curling!?!
What’s up with that?
Actually, what is up with that? Why is curling an Olympic sport? It’s true that curling was part of the first-ever Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France, in 1924. On the other hand, it was promptly—and, if I might add, understandably—dropped, and only reappeared in the 1998 games three quarters of a century later. (No offense to curlers everywhere, but maybe it’s time for another curling Olympic time out?)
Anyway, last weekend’s sports may not have been super thrilling, but the culture war aspects were entertaining. Bad Bunny’s Spanish-language halftime show led Donald Trump to denounce him. And when some of the American Olympians said a few words distinguishing their love of their country from support for the Trump administration, MAGA-types attacked them (more on this below). Samuel Johnson, call your office: Patriotism has become the first refuge of scoundrels.
Speaking of scoundrels, I’ll note that back here in Washington, D.C., Congress doesn’t seem close to a deal on the 2026 funding legislation for the Department of Homeland Security.
Which is good news. Senate Democrats are actually pretty well positioned for the fight this week. A couple weeks ago, they were able to prevail on separating out the $64 billion DHS appropriations bill from the rest of a large 2026 funding package. They should now take the next step and make clear that they have no problem with funding the non-problematic parts of DHS—the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, the Transportation Security Administration, and so on. They should propose separating those out and funding them now. Such legislation could be passed before Friday, when the continuing resolution expires. And if Republicans balk, shutting down the respectable parts of DHS would be on them.
That would leave only the proposed $10 billion of 2026 funding for ICE and $6 billion for the Border Patrol unappropriated.
Good. There’s no reason to appropriate any of it. The less new funding that goes to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol, the better.
The Democrats, being Democrats, seem unwilling or unable to articulate this simple and obvious position. They’re against the mass deportation of immigrants without due process. They’re against the mass incarceration of those seized on our streets without trial. They’re against the mass intimidation of Americans who disagree with the Trump administration. They’re against the administration’s interference with the 2026 elections. And they’re right to be against all these things. Congress can reduce the ability of ICE and the Border Patrol to do these things. The simplest and most effective way to do so is to reduce these organizations’ funding—or at least to reduce the increase in their funding—as much as possible.
Unfortunately, ICE and the Border Patrol have plenty of money stashed aside already. Last year’s reconciliation bill allocated ICE $75 billion and Customs and Border Protection $65 billion to be spent through 2029. Clawing back as much of that money as possible should be a priority for September 30, when the next appropriations fights happen, and especially for the next Congress, in which Democrats are likely to control the House and maybe the Senate. But for now the best Congress can do is deny Trump’s paramilitary forces an additional $16 billion. This would at least put a dent in their already built-in growth.
Democrats have demanded a host of new restrictions on immigration enforcement operations. Many of these are desirable. But it will be hard to enforce these restrictions on an administration that’s shown a remarkable willingness to ignore inconvenient laws. More important, none of the restrictions is nearly as important as simply depriving ICE and the Border Patrol of funds. The money matters most. It will be much harder for the Trump administration to spend money it doesn’t have than to evade restrictions it doesn’t like.
The people of Minneapolis have been courageously confronting the Trump administration’s bullies in the streets. The least Democratic elected officials could do is confront the administration seriously in Congress. That means doing what they can to starve the Trumpist authoritarian beast.
This won’t be easy. But my advice to Democrats would start with this: Politics in the age of Trump isn’t like curling. Don’t spend all your time sweeping and maneuvering. Speak out and fight. Be like Bad Bunny.
AROUND THE BULWARK
The Crisis Facing Our Military… On Shield of the Republic, ERIC EDELMAN and ELIOT COHEN welcome back friend of the show KORI SCHAKE to discuss her new book, The State and the Soldier: A History of Civil-Military Relations in the United States.
Trump 2.0’s Most Racist Moments, Ranked… The Obamas-as-apes video is the latest in a long line of racist acts and statements from this administration, writes JOSEPH RAMOS.
How Close Were Epstein’s Ties to Russia, Really? Cathy Young breaks down what we know, don’t know, and ought to find out.
Why Trump’s Attack on Refugees Could Hurt Grandma… It’s immigrants from “shithole” countries who care for our elderly, and nobody’s lining up to take their place, reports JONATHAN COHN in The Breakdown.
We’re The Ones Who Said “Hell No” to Trump… On How to Fix it, HEATH MAYO of Principles First joins JOHN AVLON to examine the erosion of democratic norms on the right—and what it will take to restore constitutional limits, checks and balances, and political courage.
Quick Hits
FAILED-STATE COPS: After federal officers killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in the Twin Cities last month, federal law enforcement prevented local authorities from investigating the matter—but insisted that they would conduct a full investigation themselves. This was a ludicrous claim to make while the entire administration was already calling Pretti and Good terrorists who’d gotten what was coming to them, but they made it nevertheless.
Now it’s becoming clear just how obscenely insufficient those investigations were. The New York Times reports that, as FBI agents were preparing to do routine forensic analysis of the scene of Good’s killing, they received orders from political leadership to stop:
The orders, they said, came from senior officials, including Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, several of whom worried that pursuing a civil rights investigation—by using a warrant obtained on that basis—would contradict President Trump’s claim that Ms. Good “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer” who fired at her as she drove her vehicle.
Over the next few days, top Department of Justice officials presented alternative approaches. First, they suggested prosecutors ask a judge to sign a new search warrant for the vehicle, predicated on a criminal investigation into whether the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who shot Ms. Good, Jonathan Ross, had been assaulted by her. Later, they urged the prosecutors to instead investigate Ms. Good’s partner, who had been with Ms. Good on the morning of the shooting, confronting immigration agents in their Minneapolis neighborhood.
Law enforcement refusing to investigate a crime scene because it would prove the president is lying about it is the sort of thing that tends to happen in failed and failing states. Time will tell how well that ends up describing us.
DON’T QUIT YOUR DAY JOB: One of the strangest ongoing phenomena on the right these days is the emergence of a small but robust industry selling right-wing political grievance as a lifestyle brand. Why get your phone service through Verizon when you could get it through Patriot Mobile? Why drink Starbucks when you could drink Black Rifle Coffee? Why wear Nike to the gym when you could wear XX-XY Athletics?
Last night’s Super Bowl halftime brought the most remarkable example yet. While Bad Bunny’s was ripping his Spanish-language set at Levi’s Stadium, Turning Point USA was streaming an alternative on YouTube: an “All-American Halftime Show” featuring the creme de la creme of MAGA entertainment, like Lee Brice and Kid Rock. The event drew only a fraction of the audience of the actual Super Bowl halftime, but still, millions tuned in to watch Kid Rock gyrate around and forget what song he was supposed to be lip-syncing to.
MAGA runs pretty much the entire country now, so you might think the TPUSA show’s tone would be triumphant. But perpetual political grievance is too powerful a drug to put down just because you’re winning. Brice’s song “Country Nowadays,” which he debuted for the halftime show, was about the purest distillation of the mood we’ve ever heard: “I just want to catch my fish, drive my truck, drink my beer / and not wake up to all this stuff I don’t wanna hear. . . . if I tell my own daughter that little boys ain’t little girls / I’d be up the creek in hot water in this cancel-your-ass world.” Powerful stuff!
THE GRIEVANCE OVERSEAS: Guys who view all sporting events through the lens of right-wing grievance had a lot to work with this weekend. In addition to the Super Bowl halftime show, Donald Trump and his legion of fans also found time to vent their spleen at another target: American Olympic athletes who acknowledge the modest fact that repping the Red, White, and Blue on the global stage is a little more complicated these days.
“There’s obviously a lot going on that I’m not the biggest fan of, and I think a lot of people aren’t,” freestyle skier Hunter Hess told reporters Friday. “Just because I’m wearing the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the U.S.”
The president didn’t take kindly to this particular exercise of an American’s First Amendment freedoms. “U.S. Olympic Skier, Hunter Hess, a real Loser, says he doesn’t represent his Country in the current Winter Olympics,” Trump fumed on Truth Social. “If that’s the case, he shouldn’t have tried out for the Team, and it’s too bad he’s on it. Very hard to root for someone like this. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Hey, does anyone know if Kid Rock can ski?
Cheap Shots
Editor’s note: Alternatively, it was a great defensive game.
Bad Bunny killed it with that halftime show! The camera angle and sequence was even better than Usher two years ago.
ICE stayed away from the Super Bowl halftime show.
Kristi Noem (I think) stayed away from the Puppy Bowl.
And only the most whiny aggrieved people watched the Kid Rock concert.
It was a great 15 minutes for America.
New Englander here. When I saw Bob Kraft at the "Melania" premiere, it really pissed me off. He chose to be at Trump's side even while the ICE operations in Minneapolis were ongoing and Trump's place in the Epstein files were well established. That tells me Kraft doesn't give a fuck about anything but himself, and it was then I knew New England would lose the Super Bowl because of #ETTD. So I didn't watch the game, and I'm not upset my home team lost.