Kamala Harris’s SNL skit shows ‘clear and blatant’ disregard for election rules

Vice-president’s appearance on NBC an infringement of Equal Time rule, says head of Federal Communications Commission

Kamala Harris has become embroiled in a fresh media bias row over her 90-second long skit on SNL.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chief said her appearance on NBC’s Saturday Night Live showed a “clear and blatant” disregard for the rules.
The Democratic candidate made her debut on the NBC show this weekend in a short sketch alongside comedian Maya Rudolph, who plays Ms Harris in the show.
During the sketch, the vice-president played herself as the mirror-image double of Rudolph’s character. “It is nice to see you Kamala,” she told the comedian. “And I’m just here to remind you, you got this.”
Ms Harris’s surprise appearance was met with a backlash by some critics who said NBC had broken election rules requiring broadcasters to give candidates the same amount of airtime.
Brendan Carr, who was appointed by Donald Trump as the Republican Commissioner for the FCC, said: “This is a clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC’s Equal Time rule.
“The purpose of the rule is to avoid exactly this type of biased and partisan conduct — a licensed broadcaster using the public airwaves to exert its influence for one candidate on the eve of an election.”
He emphasised that broadcasters hold a “special position of trust” to “operate in the public interest”.
It is the second time in the campaign that a major broadcaster has been accused of bias towards Ms Harris, after CBS admitted editing an interview with the Democratic candidate to make one of her answers “more succinct”.
Following Mr Carr’s comments, NBC News filed an Equal Time notice with the Federal Communications Commission late on Sunday, in an apparent effort to assuage critics.
“Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate for president in the 2024 national election, appeared without charge on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” (SNL) for a total period of 1 minute and 30 seconds on November 2, 2024,” the notice read.
The broadcaster then played a recorded message from Trump during its broadcast of a NASCAR playoff race on Sunday evening, with one source familiar with the matter claiming the appearance was an attempt to give the same amount of time to the Republican candidate, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Under normal circumstances, NBC’s filing would “usually open up a seven-day period when all other qualified candidates can seek Equal Time from NBC-meaning comparable time on a comparable program. Here, opposing candidates don’t have seven days”, Mr Carr told Fox News.
“This has all the appearances of, at least some leadership at NBC, at SNL, making clear that they wanted to weigh-in in favour of one candidate before the election. That’s exactly why, for decades, we’ve had an Equal Time rule on the book,” he told Fox.
Jason Miller, a Trump campaign senior adviser, told the network that SNL did not extend the same invitation to the former president. Meanwhile, Republicans accused Ms Harris of “cosplaying with her elitist friends” as her campaign “spirals down the drain into obscurity”.
The broadcasting row comes after Trump sued CBS News for $10 billion over claims the network doctored an interview with Ms Harris to make her appear more coherent.
Trump and his supporters claimed it had deliberately edited a “word salad” answer given by the vice-president during a 60 Minutes interview.
In a preview aired a day before the interview, Ms Harris was seen giving a rambling response to a question about Israel, but in the actual interview the following day her answer to the same question was significantly shorter.
The network later admitted it had clipped the vice-president’s answer to make it “more succinct”, but rejected Trump’s claim that its editing was “deceitful”.
The FCC is made up of five political appointees who act as commissioners.