Late-night hosts wasted no time roasting Turning Point USA’s attempt at an “alternative” Super Bowl halftime show.
On their Feb. 9 episodes, Jimmy Kimmel and Jon Stewart mocked the conservative group’s All-American Halftime Show, which streamed on YouTube during the Super Bowl as a counterprogramming option to the official halftime performance headlined by Bad Bunny. Turning Point positioned the stream for viewers annoyed that Bad Bunny would perform in Spanish, and the event was also expected to stream on X before licensing issues derailed that plan.
On “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” Kimmel called the production a “disaster,” joking it seemed designed for “angry, 75-year-old grandpas” who were “so upset they might have to listen to Spanish for eight minutes.” He also took aim at Kid Rock’s set, likening it to a “lip-sync battle with himself” and quipping that the singer’s mouth didn’t match the music. Kid Rock has since acknowledged there was a syncing problem.
Kimmel leaned into the irony, arguing that Turning Point’s critics complained about not being able to understand Bad Bunny’s lyrics—then chose an act whose biggest hook is famously nonsensical. He even joked about whether Donald Trump could explain what “Bawitdaba” means. And while he teased the right for being overly sensitive about language, he also poked fun at liberals, suggesting some were suddenly very eager to prove how much they loved Bad Bunny.
Over on “The Daily Show,” Stewart offered his own sarcastic praise for an alternative show presented “in the King’s English,” before mocking Kid Rock as “an old man in acid-washed jorts” lip-syncing through a pre-taped performance. Stewart later called it “pathetic” that people he described as politically powerful were so bothered by a Spanish-language performance that they felt the need to build a “safe space” halftime show of their own—then contrasted that reaction with the way the right used to ridicule liberals for being easily offended.
