Vice President Kamala Harris’ appearance on “Saturday Night Live” is no laughing matter, according to a commissioner with the Federal Communications Commission.
Commissioner Brendan Carr posted on X, formerly Twitter, that the Saturday appearance allegedly violates the “equal time” rule, The Hill reported.
“This is a clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC’s Equal Time rule,” Carr posted. Carr’s post was in response to a report by The Associated Press about Harris being on the show — the last one before the Nov. 5 election.
“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,” Carr said
Carr, a Trump appointee, is the senior Republican on the commission.
Harris and comedian Maya Rudolph, who impersonated Harris on the show, paired up for part of the opening sketch.
Rudolph, portraying her version of Harris, looked into a mirror to see the real Harris looking back.
“I’m just here to remind you, you got this, because you can do something your opponent can’t do — you can open doors,” Harris told Rudolph. This jab was in reference to a video of former President Donald Trump having a difficult time grasping the a garbage truck door handle.
Lorne Michaels, executive producer of “SNL,” previously said in neither presidential candidate would be on the show in this election cycle.
“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. “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.”
A spokesperson for the FCC told The Hill the agency “has not made any determination regarding [political] programming rules, nor have we received a complaint from any interested parties.”
Other politicians such as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former President Barack Obama and Trump have previously been guest stars on “SNL.”
