www.newsbusters.org
'So What's With The Outrage?' CNN's Tapper Never Mentions Bad Bunny Being Anti-ICE
Most Americans are aware of the controversies involving ICE, and the attacks aimed at their agents. If you are in the media, you have to know about the statements made against ICE by the man who will be featured in Sunday's Super Bowl Half Time Show, Bad Bunny. Just last Sunday he accepted a Grammy, proclaiming, "Ice Out'. Last year he said he didn't tour in the U.S. because he feared ICE raids. But Friday on CNN's The Lead With Jake Tapper, it was as if Bad Bunny has no problem with ICE.
Tapper played a campaign ad put out by Michigan GOP gubernatorial candidate Perry Johnson, who urged viewers to switch at halftime to TPUSA's alternative show featuring Kid Rock, and asked former Trump campaign official Bryan Lanza what he thought about it, and he disparaged it as wasted millions, as a "gimmick."
LANZA:.. But at the end of the day, people just want to watch football and they want to be entertained... I'll be watching Bad Bunny. I won't be turning over to Talking Points Memo [?]... But I just want politics out of my football. I just want to enjoy football. I want to join the halftime show. ..Let's just enjoy football.
That sounds like a CNN Republican answer, like someone who doesn't understand why Bad Bunny is....bad. Tapper continued.
TAPPER: .. Here's what White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said about who President Trump is going to be watching during halftime.
LEAVITT: I think the President would much prefer a Kid Rock performance over Bad Bunny.
Could Bunny's verbal attacks on ICE have something to do with it? Tapper and his panel continued to ignore that, as Tapper then asked Democrat Strategist Chuck Rocha: "What do you make of this latest battle in the culture wars?" By not getting into the actual substance, Tapper makes it sound like it's just white rappers in English vs. Latino rappers in Spanish.
Rocha replied: "It's it's ludicrous for a Latino that loves Bad Bunny. This ain't even close. And I'm not trying to compare, but Bad Bunny has 87 million listeners a month on his social media. Kid Rock has five." He added that the NFL is making a business decision, trying to draw in international audiences to the NFL. Rocha said "It's just good business, and he's a whole lot cooler." Because he's not a redneck?
Tapper announced: "We should also note the Super Bowl has not only featured American citizen entertainers." But Bad Bunny is a Puerto Rican, and they are American citizens. Ooooops. As if that's the problem? He cluelessly asked: "So, what's with the outrage? Is it because Bad Bunny has been outspoken against Trump? Or what do you think it is?"
That doesn't help. But Lanza lamely answered that in the "conservative echo chamber," there are now good banks and bad banks (and don't mention debanking), and "now it's "bleeding into our music."
Then Rocha said somehow you can't criticize Latino leftists: "This is a losing argument all the way around. Not about Bryan, not about the Republicans, but about culture. There's one thing in America is that Latinos, whether it's Bryan, whether it's me, whether it's Bad Bunny, Latinos have become a big part of the fabric of this country. And Bad Bunny is just one example from Puerto Rico of what we're seeing all across the country. Your favorite Mexican restaurant, your favorite dance moves, all of these things make us beautiful. "
ICE hatred, anybody? Nope. Tapper bizarrely claimed that Bad Bunny isn't like, oh, Robert De Niro, or Kathy Griffin. He's not political??
TAPPER: And this is just an age old debate about can you separate the art from the artist you don't like. So you don't like Bad Bunny's politics? He's not a fan of Trump. Trump's not a fan of him.. And my personal view is if an actor or a performer is so outspoken, I can't think of anything other than that, when I'm listening or watching. Sure I get it. But like, I don't think that describes Bad Bunny, his music is not political.
Oh poor Jake. Does he not know of Bad Bunny 's 2020 hit Compositor Del Año where he called President Trump a mother-F****er? The same term he used for ICE Agents, along with sons of bitches, last year. Does he not know about his sexually explicit lyrics, as documented by our Jorge Bonilla? Or Jorge's point that Bad Bunny endorsed a far-left candidate for governor of Puerto Rico who loves Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro?
Clearly, he could have educated Tapper is he wanted an actual conservative critique, and fought back as Rocha claimed Bad Bunny is "about trying to hold every party accountable in Puerto Rico to do what's right by their people."
How in the name of journalism did all of this get left out of this segment? What was Tapper's motivation for not once mentioning ICE?