The senior Republican commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission blasted Vice President Kamala Harris’ “Saturday Night Live” debut as a “clear and blatant effort” to evade the Equal Time rule.
Brendan Carr stressed that the FCC’s “equal time” requirements mandate opposing candidates to get the same air time, and alleged that NBC “structured this appearance in a way that evades these requirements” by timing it so close to Election Day.
“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,” Carr wrote on X.
Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris reacts next to Maya Rudolph as she makes an appearance on Saturday Night Live in New York City. REUTERS
Commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission Brendan Carr speaks during the 2024 Conservative Political Action Conference. Anadolu via Getty Images“Unless the broadcaster offered Equal Time to other qualifying campaigns.”
Harris, 60, made a surprise appearance on SNL and came face-to-face with her impersonator Maya Rudolph in the show’s cold open where she urged sought to encourage voters to back her on Nov. 5 and poked fun at her boisterous laugh.
“I’m gonna vote for us,” Rudolph quipped.
“Any chance you’re registered in Pennsylvania?” Harris joked in response.
Donald Trump talks to reporters as he sits in a garbage truck Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024. APThe segment lasted just under three minutes. NBC is licensed by the FCC for broadcast television, which gives them access to a limited spectrum and means that they are subject to more stringent rules.
Given the Equal Time rule, SNL’s executive producer Lorne Michaels indicated in an interview published earlier this month that he wouldn’t bring on either former President Donald Trump or Harris to the program.
“You can’t bring the actual people who are running on because of election laws and the equal time provisions,” Michaels told The Hollywood Reporter. “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.”
X / @BrendanCarrFCCCarr is one of four FCC commissioners who serve under Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. Technically there are two Democrats and two Republican FCC commissioners but Rosenworcel is a Democrat.
Back in the 2016 election cycle, the FCC explained that it would enforce the Equal Time rule against SNL over Trump’s appearance on the comedy program. Other presidential candidates took advantage of that opportunity at the time.
This was also the case when Hillary Clinton appeared on SNL as well.
Federal law does not require networks to give candidates the exact same type of appearance, but it does require “comparable time and placement.”
The Post reached out to the two campaigns and NBC for comment. The Trump-Vance campaign previously ripped into Harris’ SNL debut.
“Kamala Harris has nothing substantive to offer the American people, so that’s why she’s living out her warped fantasy cosplaying with her elitist friends on Saturday Night Leftists as her campaign spirals down the drain into obscurity,” spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement.
“For the last four years, Kamala’s destructive policies have led to untold misery and hurt for all Americans. She broke it, and President Trump will fix it.”
