SAUNDERS: Live from New York, it’s a rule-breaking love fest for Kamala

WASHINGTON

On the final weekend of the 2024 campaign, NBC put its thumb on the scale for Kamala Harris, who turned up as a surprise guest during the lead sketch on “Saturday Night Live.”

The “cold open” was a love fest as Harris doppelgänger Maya Rudolph talked through a mirror with the vice president about the Nov. 5 election. The women tried out slogans like, “Keep Kamala and carry on-ala,” before they belted out the show’s signature line, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday night.”

We’re adults here. We know how babies are made. And we know that network heavyweights and talent are rooting for Harris to win and for Donald Trump to lose.

The show’s political sensibilities are hardly a state secret.

But there is one niggling issue here: the “equal time” rule. And it’s not so niggling that “SNL” creator Lorne Michaels hadn’t noticed it.

Before the Kamala show, Michaels told The Hollywood Reporter that he had not reached out to either presidential candidate and did not plan to, because, “You can’t bring the actual people who are running on because of election laws and the equal time provisions.”

And: “You can’t have the main candidates without having all the candidates, and there are lots of minor candidates that are only on the ballot in, like, three states, and that becomes really complicated.”

And yet somehow Harris appeared on “SNL” Saturday night but Trump did not.

Nor did Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Libertarian Chase Oliver or independent Cornel West, all of whom qualified for a slot on my ballot.

Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Brendan Carr took note. On the platform X, the Trump appointee noted, “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.”

“SNL” bigs may like to see themselves as standing up to power and declaring the emperor has no clothes, as The Hollywood Reporter noted. But there was no bite in the Rudolph/Harris skit — only a dig about Trump’s fumble opening a garbage truck door. It was more like shining power’s shoes.

Sunday, during a NASCAR event and NFL coverage, NBC aired a Trump video in which the former president warned Harris could cause a “depression.”

Some might call the time score even — although, as Carr pointed out, one party had a scripted golden moment with an “SNL” star, while the other did not have as much time to prepare his response.

Trump hosted “SNL” in November 2015 during a hotly contested Republican presidential primary. Back then, news outlets eagerly ran any story with a Trump angle, which no doubt contributed to Trump’s victory in the 2016 GOP primaries.

At the time, I suspected decision makers had an ulterior motive: They believed that if Trump won the GOP primary, the Democratic nominee would stand a better chance on Election Day.

Oops.

The weekend “SNL” episode also included a segment with Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va. The former vice presidential nominee played himself in a skit about a game show called “What’s That Name?” Even the host forgot Kaine’s name. And the segment was funny.

But the Rudolph/Harris bit wasn’t funny. It was a campaign event.

Contact Review-Journal Washington Columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X.