Bulwark Takes - Tim Miller: MAGA’s Bad Bunny Freakout Means They're Losing Control

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

Tim Miller joins Nicolle Wallace to take on MAGA tantrum over Bad Bunny, and how it shows their attempt to control American culture is failing. Watch Deadline: White House on MSNBC: https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house

Hey, everybody, Tim Moore from the Bull Work here. What's on with Nicole Wallace? And we're discussing the MAGA panic attack over Bad Bunny being named to the halftime show host of the Super Bowl. And, you know, look, we'll keep this a quick one. There's a lot of weightier issues out there for us to cover. But as we get into, I do think it's telling about, you know, kind of the culture war part of this fight, where the MAGA side really saw Trump's win is not just a political victory, but a cultural one. And they expect now cultural hegemony over the rest of the country.

And they're not getting it. And in some ways, that's a good sign. And that's powerful. And it's maybe as powerful. I don't want to overstate it. It's an important ballast against Trump's political power, pushing back on them culturally, having people feel like they're out of step culturally. You know, a bunch of old white guys running about bad bunny.

I don't know about you guys, listeners. I'm sure some of you don't listen to Bad Bunny. I went to a Bad Bunny show last year in New Orleans, like almost as a cultural experience because I recognized that that was something that kind of hadn't pierced my bubble really that much. And I thought it'd be interesting. It was. It was like I was at the Smoothie King Center and in New Orleans a small town and bump into people all the time. I like didn't really bump into anybody.

I knew it was kind of like a different, you know, different audience. I found out later a couple of my pals were there just on the other side of the other side of the stadium. So, you know, sometimes maybe your bubble wasn't quite as tight as you think it is. But, you know, when it comes to this, to bad money in particular, like, I get that. Like, if you're, if you're thinking, man, America, like, this is the Super Bowl act. Like, maybe I'm not as in touch with America. But that's kind of the great part of America. It's the beautiful part of America.

It's like that there's all this stuff happening out there and that we're like the Salman, salmongundee of cultures and attitudes and views. And this is one that. it doesn't hit Trump's core base. But it does hit a lot of people that voted for Trump. And so this tantrum, a panic attack, once again, kind of isolates them from that broad coalition from what they thought that they were going to get. So anyway, I get into this more with Nicole.

We don't need to belabor the point. Stick around. I don't know what the NFL thought. I think they picked one of the great artists of our time. they pick someone wildly popular, but Bad Bunny also happens to be an honorable and a clear and a moral center in speaking out against the Trump administration, both in its treatment of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria and in its current brutal and harsh immigration policies. Yeah, and there's that old madman line or then the elevator, and the guy looks at Don and says,

I hate you and Don looks at him and says, I don't think about you at all. I think that was the NFL's policy towards Trump. I think the Trump people, as you mentioned, a very fragile Trump boys who are upset and thought that whoever the biggest Trump star would be, it's hard to even come up with who that would be, but I thought they would have a more favorable guest and a more dominant culture right now. And they thought that when they won the election, that meant that they won everything and they get to run rough shot over everybody. I do think that is part of their worldview as warped as that is. And the NFL wasn't thinking about politics at all. I mean, I'm sure they had somebody vet what he had

said about ICE. We can talk about that in a second, but I think what the NFL was doing was saying, hey, we're trying to expand globally. They had a game in Ireland this weekend. They're trying to get in Brazil recently. They're trying to have games all over the world. And so why not bring in one of the biggest superstars on the globe to come and do the halftime show and try to appeal to the global market as opposed to merely just like the angry white guy living in the south market nothing wrong with that i'm a white guy living in the south bad bunny's not my favorite i'm not spending bad bunny

that often so i understand why they feel that's connected from it but i also understand why the nfl might not be micro targeting me well but in this country i think bad bunny tops taylor swift in terms of downloads on spotify so i mean bat bunny is huge huge huge here and in terms of american exports i I think he's as big as they get. I think your first point, though, is so interesting about culture. They won the election, and they know it. They believe they won culture because they think culture can be dominated the way the Republicans in Congress can be dominated.

But that's not how culture works. And if you listen, and I know you pay really close attention to the manosphere, they're slipping. You know, if they're sort of like boats that were anchored together, you know, the manisphere has drifted away from them. And they have made inroads into culture in ways that the Republicans you and I work for really never did. But they're not dominant. They have, Trump has an approval rating.

I looked at every poll I could find. He doesn't crack 40. Yeah, no doubt about that. And so just on both points, and their feelings that want to dominate culture. And you've seen this over the last few weeks. And I got my little internet tip with Megan Kelly. Like one of the things she said to me is that we are going to defeat you, which is like a kind of crazy thing to say. just in general, but that was her point.

It was like broadly everywhere, right? Like, we want your people, anti-Trump people, pro-democracy. Why is she so obsessed with you? I don't know. It's very strange. But she wants us to be silent, right? It's not just, like, not just winning the election. That's not good enough, right?

Silent. And I think that they want, you know, the universities to cave to them, right? We've seen those across everything. Like, that's what they want the movies to go back to how they were before and all the mermaids to be white again. And Princess, like, that's what they wanted out of this election it was like not because Trump wasn't really about policy

a couple policies the border tariffs but mostly it was about this cultural feeling that they were being oppressed and so this upsets them when they haven't won again and I do just back to the manosphere I do think that that like puts them that's only part of the coalition that cares about that right it's this the most

fragile part of the MAGA coalition some of these guys that came in board late I've been really I've been on a lot of flights lately so I've been binging on their podcasts you know it feels kind of weird to them You know, it's like, why do you care about this so much? Like, this isn't about you. And, you know, they listen to Bad Bunny.

Like you said, he's very popular. So I do think in some ways, like this need to feel like they need to dominate everything that's being pushed back on by South Park and now by the NFL and other places is a sign of, you kind of the weakening grip of where they thought they would be right now, at least on that side of things. Obviously, he has a pretty strong grip on the more governmental side of things. Right. He is an autocrats, you know, clenched fist around the Department of Justice, but culture not so much. Tim Miller, thank you very much for joining us on this.