FCC Commissioner Comments On Skit

By
Rachel Stevenson
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In a move that’s raising more than a few eyebrows, Saturday Night Live (SNL) invited Vice President Kamala Harris onto the show just days before the election. The skit featured Harris doing a mirror gag with Maya Rudolph, who plays the VP on SNL, in what was clearly a stunt aimed at making Harris seem more approachable to the American public. But here’s the kicker: SNL may have just walked right into an FCC equal-time rule violation.

The FCC’s equal-time rule is no small matter. It requires that any legally qualified candidate be given equal airtime if one candidate is featured on a broadcast. The purpose? To prevent precisely the kind of one-sided promotion we saw here. Now, some might argue that SNL has featured political candidates before, and technically they have. But back in 2016, when Trump made his cameo, NBC took every precaution to ensure they weren’t playing favorites. In fact, they filed official Equal Opportunity notices guaranteeing airtime to other candidates if they requested it. Yet this time, no such notices seem to have been issued, and according to Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich, no invitation went out to Trump’s campaign to make a similar appearance.

What makes this whole thing even more curious is that SNL’s own executive producer, Lorne Michaels, claimed just last month that the show was banning political candidate cameos this season. Michaels admitted it was due to the complexity of the equal-time provisions, noting that having one candidate means needing to provide opportunities to all eligible candidates, even those who aren’t on the ballot in every state. So, by his own admission, Michaels knew the rule and understood its implications. Yet here we are, with Harris grinning on national television, two days before Election Day.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr didn’t mince words, calling the cameo a “clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC’s Equal Time rule.” He made it clear that the rule exists specifically to prevent broadcasters from using the public airwaves for biased political influence on the eve of an election. Carr’s critique points directly at SNL’s decision to host Harris without offering equivalent time to other candidates, particularly Trump. In essence, by putting Harris on the screen on the last Saturday before Election Day, SNL has given her a national platform while effectively denying Trump the same.

“This is a clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC’s Equal Time rule,” Carr wrote on X. “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. Unless the broadcaster offered Equal Time to other qualifying campaigns.”

Of course, the Democrats will say that the equal-time rule is outdated or trivial. But the rule itself was created to keep exactly this kind of partisan stunt off the airwaves. It’s not about preventing humor; it’s about preserving fairness. Imagine the uproar if Trump had been given the same spotlight without extending the same to Biden back in 2016. And in true form, Democrats didn’t hesitate to demand equal time whenever Trump appeared on SNL or any other network show back then.

So, while some will try to brush this off as a harmless comedy sketch, the timing and the clear favoritism here make it more than just a laugh. SNL and NBC should have known better, especially given their previous insistence on “following the rules.” But as it stands, it looks like SNL handed Harris a free national platform at the expense of equal-time provisions and common sense, showing once again how some rules only seem to apply when it’s convenient.

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