Donald Trump told the New York Post last month that he isn’t planning to attend this Sunday’s Super Bowl in the Bay Area because it is “just too far away.” It was a transparently flimsy, fake-sounding excuse given that planes exist, he frequently travels long distances, and he went to last year’s Super Bowl.
What the president didn’t say in his Post interview is that some of his administration officials and advisers had privately assessed that if Trump were to attend Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara, California, the crowd at the stadium would likely aggressively boo him, Zeteo has learned.
It did not take a genius to figure this one out.
The president’s approval rating has taken a dramatic nosedive in the 12 months since he attended last year’s big game in New Orleans. Multiple massive protests against him have occurred all throughout the country since early 2025. The economy remains brutal, and voters now lay the blame at Trump’s feet, not Joe Biden’s. A diverse array of Trump’s policies and decisions are blisteringly unpopular today. And in recent months, Trump has presided over a lawless, violent crackdown on immigrants and protesters, culminating in the videotaped murders of two US citizens, and tanking his poll numbers on what used to be a key winning issue for him.
In recent months, according to two people familiar with the situation and two sources briefed on it, several aides and advisers to the president quietly determined that the chances were rather high of Trump getting booed “big league,” at the Super Bowl, in the words of one White House official. Such a moment would instantly create a wealth of viral video clips and media coverage that administration officials would prefer to avoid.
