FCC regulator claims Harris' appearance on SNL violates 'simultaneous' rule | US elections 2024

A U.S. government communications watchdog has claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris' surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live violated the “same time” rules that apply to political broadcasts.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Brendan Carr claimed on the social platform

Carr made the claim in response to an Associated Press alert that Harris was on the show that night.

“The purpose of the regulation is to prevent exactly this type of biased and partisan behavior – a licensed broadcaster using the public airwaves to exert influence on behalf of a candidate on the eve of an election. Unless the network offered the same time to other qualifying campaigns,” Carr, a Trump appointee, added.

Harris joined comedian Maya Rudolph at the start of the show in a skit that skewered Donald Trump over his recent rally speeches, including wearing an orange and yellow safety jacket, making a reference to the ongoing trash controversy and pretending to chop down a broken microphone.

Harris began her “Mirror Image” sketch opposite Rudolph, the SNL cast member chosen to impersonate her, on the other side of a mirror.

“I'm just here to remind you, get this, because you can do something your opponent can't do – you can open doors,” Harris told Rudolph, seemingly referring to a video from Earlier in the week, Trump struggled to reach the handle of a garbage truck he was briefly riding in to a rally in Wisconsin.

This came after a comedian made a joke about Puerto Rico being a “floating island of trash” at a Trump rally in New York that was widely viewed as racist. Trump disavowed the comedian but did not apologize.

In a video call to Latino voters, President Biden appeared to call Trump supporters trash. The White House later disputed this and released a transcript that changed “supporter” to “supporter,” changing the meaning. White House stenographers appealed the change.

“The American people want to stop the chaos,” Rudolph said in the SNL sketch, with Harris adding, “And stop the drama.”

“With a cool new stepmom. Get back in our pajama laser. And watch a romantic comedy,” Rudolph said, as the two later touted their “belief in the promise of America.”

Lorne Michaels, the executive producer of SNL, which is celebrating its 50th season on NBC, told The Hollywood Reporter in September that neither Harris nor Trump himself would appear on the show.

“Because of election laws and equal opportunity regulations, you can’t bring the actual candidates,” Michaels told the outlet.

“You can’t have the major candidates without having all the candidates, and there are a lot of minor candidates who are only on the ballot in about three states, and that gets really complicated.”

In the interview, Michaels said Republicans were easier to characterize than Democrats as being offended by certain skits.

“It's not personal in the sense of an attack, it's just that you said and did that. So did you think it would be rude if we commented on this? This is what we do and we will do it again,” he said.

The Trump campaign complained about Harris' performance, saying Harris “has nothing of substance to offer the American people, so she is living out her distorted fantasy by playing on Saturday Night Leftists with her elite friends while her campaign is going south.” and fades into obscurity,” a spokesperson Steven Cheung told Fox News Digital.

Some viewers also noted that Harris' “Mirror Image” comedy sketch was conceptually identical to a sketch Trump appeared in with former SNL comedian Jimmy Fallon on Fallon's “The Tonight Show” in 2015. “I knew the SNL sketch with Kamala Harris looked familiar…” radio host Ari Hoffman said in an Instagram post that linked to the Fallon Trump sketch.