FCC commissioner fumes over Harris' SNL appearance, says it violates ‘Equal Time’ rule

Brendan Carr has claimed that Kamala Harris' Saturday Night Live debut violates FCC's Equal Time rule

A senior Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commissioner has lambasted Kamala Harris' Saturday Night Live debut. Taking to social media on Saturday, Brendan Carr claimed that the vice president's appearance on the show was a “clear and blatant effort” to violate the agency's “Equal Time” rule.

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris appears on NBC's "Saturday Night Live," with Maya Rudolph, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024 in New York. Harris has made an unannounced trip to New York to appear briefly stepping away from the battleground states she's been campaigning in with just three days to go before the election. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)(AP)

Brendan Carr slams Kamala Harris' SNL appearance

The 45-year-old Republican explained that the FCC's Equal Time rule mandates opposing candidates to get the same air time. Carr argued that NBC “structured this appearance in a way that evades these requirements.” In a statement shared to X, formerly Twitter, the commissioner wrote, “This is a clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC’s Equal Time rule.”

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Carr's statement came in response to a post from the Associated Press about the Democratic nominee's appearance on the show. “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,” he added.

Harris' SNL debut came just days ahead of Tuesday's showdown, where she appeared alongside her impersonator Maya Rudolph. Lorne Michaels, the show's executive producer had said in a past interview that neither Harris nor Donald Trump would make appearances on his show during the 2024 presidential race.

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“You can’t bring the actual people who are running on because of election laws and the equal time provisions,” he told The Hollywood Reporter months ago. “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,” Michaels added.