Why MAGA Is Fuming Over Bad Bunny’s Halftime Show

0:00Sabrina Rodriguez:This is a new era of American innovation. The National Cancer Institute is using Google AI to help cancer researchers collaborate, identify patterns, recommend research, and accelerate scientific discovery. Learn more at g.co slash American Innovation.

0:18Luke Vargas:Investors punish Amazon for its AI spending plans and send tech stocks tumbling around the world. Plus, President Trump debuts a government-run drug-buying site in a bid to tackle high prices. You're going to see numbers that you're not going to believe. And we'll go behind the off-field drama ahead of Sunday's Super Bowl. It's Friday, February 6th. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal. And here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today.

0:50Luke Vargas:Amazon stock is down more than 7 % off hours after the company announced a nearly 60 % jump in its planned AI spending, far higher than Wall Street had been expecting. At the same time, year-over-year, cloud computing growth of 24 percent came in below Microsoft's 39 percent and Alphabet's 48. Amazon has said that growth rates don't fully capture its standing in the industry, and CFO Brian Olsavsky tried to convince investors that AI spending would pay off.

1:21Shelby Holliday:This isn't some sort of quixotic, top-line grab. We have confidence that these investments will yield strong returns on invested capital. We've done that with our core AWS business, and I think that will very much be true here as well.

1:36Luke Vargas:But that hasn't satisfied investors, as AI spending concerns feed a wider downturn in European and Asian markets this morning. Korea's tech-heavy index even halted trading at one point as stocks slumped. That follows another sell-off in U.S. software stocks yesterday after Anthropic released a new AI model with upgraded data analysis, coding, and product management functions. Meanwhile, shares of Jeep maker Stellantis are plunging today to lows not seen since the start of the pandemic. To blame, an announced$26 billion in written-off investments after the company overestimated demand for EVs in the U.S.

2:14Luke Vargas:Those charges exceed similar recent write-downs by Ford and GM. And so much for Jobs Friday. Thanks to the latest government shutdown that ended on Tuesday, investors won't be getting a look at January's jobs report today as scheduled. Instead, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will publish the data on Wednesday, shifting the release of January inflation data to next Friday instead. According to Journal Economics reporter Matt Grossman, investors may need to come to terms with delays to official data, given that four of the last five jobs reports have been delayed in some fashion.

2:48Shelby Holliday:In a broader sense, these numbers have started to look a lot less dependable than they used to. You know, we seem to be in a world now where occasional government shutdown is the rule rather than the exception. And it just gives investors another thing they have to keep on their minds, not just what are the reports going to say, but when are they going to come?

3:08Luke Vargas:Well, who better to provide insights on the job market than you, our listeners? Whether you're hiring, firing, happily or worriedly employed, looking for a promotion or a new job altogether, we'd love to hear your impressions of the labor market or help to track down an answer to a question on your mind. To weigh in, email us a voice memo to wnpod at wsj.com and make sure to include your full name and location so we can use your comments on the show.

3:39Luke Vargas:The White House has launched its new drug-buying website, TrumpRx, in an effort to bring down health care costs for Americans. Roughly 40 drugs are available, from infertility treatments to obesity medicines such as Wegovi and ZepBound. During a press conference Thursday, Dr. Mehmet Oz touted how prices on the site are generally lower than the sticker price.

4:01Shelby Holliday:You should not be buying drugs anymore going forward without at least checking to see if those medications are available at these discounted prices on TrumpRx.gov.

4:11Luke Vargas:While the site won't change much for insured Americans, it's more likely to benefit the roughly 27 million people without coverage. High stakes talks between Iran and the U.S. over Tehran's nuclear program have ended after just 90 minutes. The U.S. has amassed air and naval forces near Iran, with President Trump threatening strikes on the country over the mass killing of protesters last month. That crackdown initially stifled opposition to the regime. But Journal reporter Margarita Stankati says there are now signs that public anger is rising once again.

4:43Shelby Holliday:So we're beginning to see big and small shows of defiance against the government, despite the continuing crackdown. For example, mourning families are shouting anti-regime slogans at funerals and memorials. We spoke to a student in Tehran who said that in her high school, students are refusing to sing the national anthem. People are still really, really angry, and I think it'll be really difficult for the government to overcome this. The reason people took to the streets in the first place in late December was over economic problems. People are saying it's very likely we'll see more mass protests, But this time, the trigger will be the mass killings that happen in January.

5:23Luke Vargas:And for more on U.S. military readiness for a strike on Iran, check out the link we've left in our show notes. Coming up ahead of a weekend ostensibly about sports, we'll look at how politics is edging its way into the Winter Olympics and Sunday's Super Bowl halftime show. That's after the break.

5:44Sabrina Rodriguez:This is a new era of American innovation. The National Cancer Institute is using Google AI to help cancer researchers collaborate, identify patterns, recommend research, and accelerate scientific discovery. Learn more at g.co slash American Innovation.

6:01Luke Vargas:The Super Bowl is this weekend. Seahawks fans and Patriots fans, myself included, will be glued to their screens. So will ad lovers, sports bettors, and fans of the most streamed musical artist in the world last year on Spotify, Bad Bunny. Journal reporter Sabrina Rodriguez has been keeping an eye on the run-up to what's become one of the most controversial and hotly anticipated halftime shows in years. And she joins me now with more. Sabrina, you are a politics reporter, we should be clear, not a music reporter. So why then are you on the Bad Bunny beat, if you will?

6:35Sabrina Rodriguez:I fell into the Bad Bunny beat back in September when he was first announced to be the Super Bowl halftime headliner. You know, at the time, it triggered backlash among MAGA influencers and folks in conservative circles, in part because of his opposition to Trump's immigration agenda that he's been very public about. Folks had other complaints about, you know, his exclusive Spanish language lyrics, his gender fluid fashion choices. So it prompted all this backlash at the time. And then fast forward the Grammys one week out from the Super Bowl. And we saw Bad Bunny take the stage, his acceptance speech for the best Musica Urbana album.

7:17Sabrina Rodriguez:And he used that as an opportunity to say ice out. And that's a phrase that we've seen in protests of the Trump administration's immigration agenda. And now we kind of see that backlash reigniting again. We are.

7:32Luke Vargas:And we should point out, in addition to speaking out last year, Bad Bunny held the highest grossing concert tour in the world and avoided the mainland U.S. on that tour, saying that he was concerned that law enforcement would be targeting his fans at those events. So instead had a big residency in Puerto Rico. You mentioned the backlash that his comments have generated. Let's play a clip here from White House Press Secretary Carolyn Levitt.

7:55Sabrina Rodriguez:I think it's very ironic and frankly sad to see celebrities who live in gated communities with private security, with millions of dollars to spend protecting themselves, trying to just demonize, again, law enforcement, public servants who work for the United States government to enforce our nation's laws.

8:19Luke Vargas:So I'm curious what you make of that, what that might tell us about the impact these comments are having. And frankly, whether this is a political stance from a celebrity that could actually matter compared to, shall we say, the many that through the years kind of have not.

8:31Sabrina Rodriguez:Yeah, I mean, I think that the White House press secretary taps into a reality of celebrities speaking out. We do see that celebrities are raising public awareness of what's happening. And Bad Bunny's comments at the Grammys sort of reflect the shift that's happening in public opinion right now. Now, polls show that a majority of Americans feel that ICE has gone too far and people are souring on how Trump is handling immigration. So it is a moment of showing sort of that shift. However, is it something that's going to cause other people to shift their views on this? That's not necessarily what's going to happen.

9:09Luke Vargas:And finally, Sabrina, I'm curious what the reaction has been on the other side of the aisle to this from Democrats. We've reported that Democratic lawmakers, for instance, have been far from united on whether they embrace calls to abolish ICE. I'm wondering if there's sort of a similar conundrum for them here.

9:25Sabrina Rodriguez:Yes, this has been a challenge for Democrats. You know, we saw in the 2024 election cycle that immigration was very much one of President Trump's strongest issues. And it's one that he really harnessed and focused in on to bring in voters. Obviously, he was successful in that as he won the presidency. So Democrats have had a hard time navigating the politics of immigration, how to talk about it. They want to have a humane policy while at the same time enforcing immigration laws or navigating border security. So there's a lot of conversations in Washington right now about reforming ICE. But what the scope of that looks like really varies from Democrat to Democrat.

10:05Sabrina Rodriguez:And I think they do not want to fall into what led to Trump being able to harness the issue in the first place.

10:11Luke Vargas:I've been speaking to Wall Street Journal politics reporter Sabrina Rodriguez. Sabrina, thank you so much.

10:15Sabrina Rodriguez:Thanks for having me.

10:21Luke Vargas:And finally, the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics are officially underway with the opening ceremony set for tonight.

10:28Shelby Holliday:We'll be watching very closely to see what kind of reception American athletes get here in Italy. And that starts with the opening ceremony. Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio both expected to be in attendance, and no one's quite sure how they'll be received.

10:43Luke Vargas:That's Journal Sports reporter Joshua Robinson on the ground at the Games, who said that despite a potentially frosty initial reception, American athletes have a chance at history over the next few weeks.

10:53Shelby Holliday:So the exciting thing for Americans is that they may actually break their record of most gold medals at a Winter Olympics. Leading the charge is going to be U.S. figure skater Ilya Malinin. He's considered a lock to win gold, and that's because he is the man known as the quad god, the specialist in the quadruple axle that was once thought impossible. Less certain is the status of U.S. skier Lindsay Vaughn, who's probably the most famous American skier in the world. She's making an incredible comeback at age 41 on a partially reconstructed knee. The problem is that about a week before she was due to race on Sunday, she injured the other knee.

11:30Shelby Holliday:and tore her ACL. Now she's said she's going to try it anyway and ski without that ACL. Can she meddle? Experts think she might.

11:37Luke Vargas:Live coverage of tonight's opening ceremony begins at 2 p.m. Eastern ahead of a primetime encore. And that's it for What's News for this Friday morning. Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer and Daniel Bach. Our supervising producer is Sandra Killhoff, and I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show. Otherwise, have a great weekend and thanks for listening.

12:09Sabrina Rodriguez:The spirit of innovation is deeply ingrained in America, and Google is helping Americans innovate in ways both big and small. Using Google AI, Etsy is making it easier for shoppers to discover unique creations and helping sellers connect with the people who love them most. This is a new era of American innovation. Learn more at g.co slash American innovation.