‘The View’ Cohosts Give Verdict on Kid Rock & Alternative Super Bowl 2026 Halftime Show

The cohosts of The View were dressed in sports gear to celebrate ahead of Super Bowl weekend on Friday’s (February 6) show. And for the first “Hot Topic” discussion, they talked about the fact that some on the political right have been so averse to the Bad Bunny-led Super Bowl LX halftime show that they’re turning to counter-programming by Turning Point USA and Kid Rock.

“This is a business model. Nobody’s looking to make moral statements. They picked Bad Bunny because he was the most-streamed artist of 2025 with over 19.8 billion streams,” Sara Haines said. “They picked the guy that will draw in the people to watch the halftime show. It’s that simple. It’s not political. The people tuning in know it’s good music. It’s a talented artist.”

When Joy Behar challenged, “Yeah, but will he say something political?” referring to the fact that Bad Bunny did make political comments during the Grammy Awards, Haines countered with, “His existence is being made political. That’s the point.” Haines went on to argue, “If you’re watching Turning Point it’s because you’re choosing to be political.”

Alyssa Farah Griffin, the panel’s resident Republican, agreed by taking a dig at Kid Rock. “If you have to pretend Kid Rock is good music, you’re making it political,” she said with a laugh, earning claps from the crowd.

Behar then read aloud a quote from Kid Rock about Bad Bunny: “He said he’s having a dance party wearing a dress and singing in Spanish. Cool. We plan to play great songs for folks who love America.” Behar then interpreted that to mean, “So in other words, if you’re speaking in Spanish and you want to dance, that makes you unAmerican, according to Kid Rock.”

Sunny Hostin then issued a “PSA” to watchers to note, “So many people have said that they have this foreign act in Bad Bunny performing for halftime, just for a public service announcement for those people, Puerto Ricans are American citizens.” She also pointed to actual foreign artists who performed at Super Bowl halftime shows past, like U.K. stars Phil Collins, U2, and Coldplay. “It’s so very racist what’s happening in this country. Let’s call a thing a thing.”

She also went on to read out lyrics from one of Kid Rock’s songs, which sexualized underaged girls. “If that’s more American, go for it.”

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Griffin went on to note that Super Bowl halftime artists are often subject to backlash, predict that this will be the most-watched ever, and take another dunk on Kid Rock. “At the end of the day, like Kid Rock is a very average artist who has mostly kind of gone past his prime. Average might be generous. One of my favorite clips… was him performing at the RNC. And everyone, including our dear first lady, looks just sort of confused. It was just like, ‘What is this that I am watching here?'” She also called the hubbub in general a “waste of energy.”

Ana Navarro had a very different take on the matter, however. “Look, yes, it is political. It is political because Bad Bunny is a man… a Latino and a Hispanic who has never shied away from defending his culture, his identity, in his people. It is political because Bad Bunny chose not to have any concerts in mainstream U.S.A., in the mainland, because he was afraid that they would be used as bait [for] ICE to go after his community, and if you have seen the racial profiling going on in Minneapolis, you wouldn’t fault him for making that decision to protect his people. It is about racism. People who think that being American only means looking a certain way, sounding a certain way, singing a certain way, dancing a certain way. Puerto Ricans have been natural-born citizens of the United States since 1917.”

Navarro concluded with, “I don’t care what they do. If you want to watch Kid Rock, go at it. If you want to watch the guy with no Grammys instead of the guy with 18 Grammys, go at it. If you want to watch the guy who is hot, Bad Bunny, or the guy who’s not, go at it. You’re not going to take one iota of joy away from the Latino community and from everybody in this country who is open to culture, is open to music, is open to having music being unified, and this is such a significant moment for the Latino community that has been under attack, and so we’re going to celebrate it, And we don’t care what you all are doing.”

The View, weekdays, 11a/10c, ABC