NBC strategically timed Harris’ promo on ‘SNL’ to get around federal law: FCC commissioner
NBC’s apparent attempt to give Kamala Harris a last-minute boost with a
cringey spot on “Saturday Night Live” — which some critics have called an “in-kind donation” — appears to have been strategically timed in order to “evade” Federal Communications Commission rules, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said ahead of the Nov. 2 broadcast.
Carr, in the Republican minority on the commission,
noted on X ahead of Harris’ appearance, “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.”
While the FCC’s
equal opportunities rule established by the Communications Act of 1934 does not require that networks like NBC “provide opposing candidates with programs identical to the initiating candidate,” networks generally must provide “comparable time and placement.”
Carr
indicated that in recent elections, NBC at least made an effort to follow the equal time rule.
The Hollywood Reporter
noted, for instance, that in 2015, then-candidate Trump appeared on “Saturday Night Live” during the Republican primary for a total of 12 minutes and five seconds. NBC subsequently offered the same amount of airtime to his opponents.
“NBC stations publicly filed Equal Opportunity notices to ensure that all other qualifying candidates could obtain Equal Time if they sought it,” wrote the commissioner. “Stations did the same thing when Clinton appeared on SNL.”
The equal time rule did not require NBC to seek out President Donald Trump and ask him if he similarly wanted to appear on “Saturday Night Live” but requires that the network entertain requests by the Republican president.
Carr suggested that the last-minute nature of Harris’ “Saturday Night Live” spot was ostensibly the liberal outlet’s way of flouting the FCC’s rule.
‘This requires FCC action.’
“Federal law requires that broadcasters provide comparable time and placement to all legally qualified candidates when the Equal Time rule is triggered,”
wrote Carr. “With only days before the election, NBC appears to have structured this appearance in a way that evades these requirements. What comparable time and placement can they offer all other qualifying candidates?”
Not only did “Saturday Night Live” leave the appearance to the last moment and its final show before the election; the head of the show appears to have misled the Trump campaign with the suggestion in a September interview that the show would ultimately have neither Harris nor the 45th president on the show prior to the election.
“Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels
told the Hollywood Reporter, “You can’t bring the actual people who are running on because of election laws and the equal time provisions.”
“You can’t have the main candidates without having all the candidate, and there are lots of minor candidates that are only on the ballot in, like, three states, and that becomes really complicated,” Michaels said, suggesting that his program might have politicians on the show after the election.
A senior adviser for the Trump campaign reportedly informed Fox News that “Saturday Night Live” did not extend an invitation to Trump.
Carr stressed that “this requires FCC action” but indicated that the initiative must be taken by the commission’s chair, Biden appointee Jessica Rosenworcel.
Rosenworcel has demonstrated an unwillingness to hold fellow travelers to the same standard as conservatives.
In September, Rosenworcel
joined her fellow Democratic commissioners in approving Democratic mega-donor George Soros’ controversial purchase of over 200 radio stations in over 40 markets with the help of unvetted foreign investors who were spared the cusomary national security review process.
After “60 Minutes'” apparently deceptive edit of its Harris interview, Rosenworcel
lashed out at Trump last month for requesting that CBS News be held to account.
‘She’s living out her warped fantasy cosplaying with her elitist friends on “Saturday Night Leftists.”‘
While Democratic commissioners on the FCC might let NBC skate for its apparent evasion of federal law, the risk taken by “Saturday Night Live” still does not appear to have been worth it.
Harris appeared in the show’s cold open, sitting opposite her fictional self, played by actress Maya Rudolph. Pretending to be mirror reflections of each other, the duo took turns talking up the vice president.
While some critics
suggested that the Harris skit was a “cringe fest,” in part owing to the accent the Democratic candidate decided to employ and her reliance on neoligisms rythming with “Kamala,” others noted that it once again evidenced Harris’ lack of originality.
Radio host Ari Hoffman was among the many critics who highlighted the resemblance between NBC’s Harris skit and Trump’s September 2015 skit on Jimmy Fallon’s “The Tonight Show,”
writing, “Kamala continues her pattern of ripping off Trump.”
In the
2015 spot, Jimmy Fallon, dressed up as Trump, sat opposite the future president with a fake mirror between them and conducted an interview.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung
wrote, “In addition to stealing policy ideas, @KamalaHarris has now resorted to stealing comedy skits.”
Cheung was likely referring to Harris’
adoption of Trump’s proposal to eliminate taxes on tips as well as her campaign’s apparent plagiarization of the defunct Biden campaign’s policy agenda. Harris’ alleged plagiarism in her 2009 book, “Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer,” indicates the vice president’s lack of originality is nothing new.
Trump senior adviser Jason Miller wrote, “Pathetic.”
Cheung
told Fox News, “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. 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.”
Blaze News has reached out to Commissioner Carr and NBC for comment.
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