A "woke" Super Bowl halftime show has President Donald Trump OK with skipping the game, because the all-American event planners and entertainers are seeking to "sow hatred."
"I'm anti-them," Trump told the New York Post of the NFL's selections of anti-Trump musicians Bad Bunny and Green Day as featured performers.
"I think it's a terrible choice. All it does is sow hatred. Terrible."
Trump has confirmed he will not attend Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara, California, on Feb. 8, breaking with his recent pattern of high-profile sports appearances, but noted his absence was due to the cross-country travel during the busy presidential schedule.
"It's just too far away," Trump said. "I would. I've gotten great hands for the Super Bowl, they like me.
"I would go if, you know, it was a little bit shorter."
Notably, Trump is the only president to have attended a Super Bowl in-person, becoming the first to do so last year in New Orleans.
Bad Bunny and Green Day have spoke out against Trump's effort to keep law and order against illegal criminal aliens that were permitted to flood the country unchecked during the Biden administration.
"I'm not a part of a redneck agenda; I'm not a part of the MAGA agenda," Green Day lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong has said, echoing his words from his onetime libertarian song "American Idiot."
Trump has voiced displeasure over the NFL's lineup, amid broader conservative backlash to the controversial halftime acts; critics have highlighted both artists’ past commentary on Trump and political issues.
The announcement comes as Winter Olympics diplomacy and high-level U.S. delegations draw attention away from that weekend, with Vice President JD Vance slated to lead the U.S. delegation at the Feb. 6 opening ceremony in Italy.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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