Vice President Kamala Harris’ last-minute appearance on “Saturday Night Live” was telling in a number of ways.
First, on the last Saturday night before Election Day, Harris decided it was more profitable for her to spend her time with a pop-culture version of herself than with the average voter.
Second, both her campaign and NBC decided that the rules didn’t apply to them — so blatantly so that one Federal Communications Commission member said it was “plainly designed to evade” the law.
“This has all the appearances of, at least some leadership at NBC, at ‘SNL,’ making clear that they wanted to weigh-in in favor of one candidate before the election,” said Brendan Carr, the senior Republican commissioner on the FCC, in an interview with Fox News the morning after the appearance.
On some networks, this may be fine — but, on broadcast networks like NBC, it’s not.
For any station that broadcasts over the airwaves, be it TV or radio, the commission has an equal-time rule. The regulation, established in 1934, requires that stations and networks provide equal time for political candidates.
According to Fox News, the Trump campaign said they weren’t invited to “SNL,” with Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung saying the appearance was indicative of the desperation Harris feels as “her campaign spirals down the drain into obscurity.”
While there are certain exemptions to the equal-time rule — “newscasts, documentaries and political debates” are among them, according to Fox News — it’s worth noting “Saturday Night Live” is not one of them. Especially not when it’s a fawning cold open like this:
Kamala Harris talks to Kamala Harris pic.twitter.com/AJuW7aO7VM
— Saturday Night Live – SNL (@nbcsnl) November 3, 2024
Did Kamala Harris’ campaign break FCC rules?
That’s actress Maya Rudolph as “Kamala Harris” and Kamala Harris gushing over how awesome Kamala Harris is and cracking jokes about Trump not being able to open doors (groan), her laugh (double groan), and ending everything with “-amala.” (I’m beyond glad that, one way or another, this is ending Tuesday.)
Even before the sketch aired, the FCC commissioner took to social media to point out the hypocrisy, calling it “a clear and blatant effort to evade” the 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 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.… https://t.co/LliZF0po9t
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) November 3, 2024
As Carr pointed out, this sketch took place just before the election — without any offer to either Donald Trump or any of the third-party candidates to come on.
“That’s exactly why, for decades, we’ve had an equal time rule on the book, is to prevent that,” he said. “Because remember, broadcasters are placed in a special position of trust. They’re not just like any other person with a soapbox on the corner. They have a license from the federal government that obligates them to operate in the public interest.”
“NBC has structured this in a way that’s plainly designed to evade the FCC’s rules. We’re talking 50 hours before Election Day starts, without any notice to other candidates, as far as I can tell,” Carr added.
“And after previously coming out and saying they weren’t going to do this precisely because they did not believe that they could do this consistent with election laws and the FCC’s equal time rule.”
Now, mind you, Kamala’s appearance might have done more harm than good, given the cringe factor of it. But rules are rules — and picture just how livid the Democrats would be if Trump appeared on a network show with a little over two days to go before Election Day begins.
You don’t even have to ask how many investigations there would be. Were the Russians involved? Did they have a “pee tape” of a network executive? If not, how could these people sleep at night? They’re endangering democracy — which is why, naturally, we need to investigate the stuffing out of them.
In this case, what happened? Quietly, NBC News filed an equal time notice late Sunday, saying “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.”
Trump also aired ads during the NASCAR’s Xfinity 500 and the Sunday night NFL game, according to the New York Post, with some social media reports claiming that this was given gratis in response to the Kamala cold open. It wasn’t however, throwing the power of “SNL” behind a single candidate, which goes well beyond just another campaign ad.
And that, given the late hour, will likely be the end of this ridiculous stunt. Given how blatant and how clearly designed to circumvent the rules this move was, it shouldn’t be allowed to die that way.
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