Three days earlier than the election, Kamala Harris made a cameo throughout the Saturday Night Live chilly open, sharing some phrases with the lady who performs her, Maya Rudolph, as she ready to offer her last Pennsylvania speech of the presidential marketing campaign.
“I’m simply right here to remind you, you bought this, as a result of you are able to do one thing your opponent can’t do: You’ll be able to open doorways,” the actual Harris stated to Rudolph’s Kamala, making a joke about Donald Trump’s trash-truck stunt this previous week.
Rudolph’s Kamala then let loose amusing — one thing that has been the supply of Trump’s mockery.
“I don’t actually chuckle like that, do I?” the actual Harris requested.
“Ahhhh…slightly bit,” Rudolph’s Kamala responded.
The skit was a lift for Harris, because it featured a weary and exhausted Trump (James Austin Johnson) flailing at one in every of his rallies and gave the actual vp an opportunity to make a pitch.
“I’m going to vote for us!” Rudolph’s Kamala stated on the conclusion of the sketch.
“Any likelihood you might be registered in Pennsylvania?” the actual Harris requested.
“Nope, I’m not,” Rudolph stated.
“Nicely, it’s price a shot,” the actual Harris stated, earlier than they each shouted, “Dwell from New York, It’s Saturday Night time!”
Harris and Rudolph appeared together before, at a Zoom digital fundraiser for the Biden-Harris marketing campaign in 2020, once they had been additionally joined by Hillary Clinton and her SNL doppelganger, Amy Poehler.
Phrase that Harris would do a cameo leaked earlier this night, and have become apparent as soon as her marketing campaign pool did a cease in New York after which to 30 Rockefeller Middle, arriving round 8 p.m. ET.
Harris’ look was the primary of a presidential nominee since John McCain made an look on the present in 2008, additionally simply days earlier than the election. Nikki Haley was the final presidential candidate to seem, in a cameo earlier this yr. Donald Trump’s final look was in November 2015, when he hosted the present within the midst of the Republican main.
Along with Rudolph as Harris and Johnson as Trump, the sketch featured Andy Samberg as Doug Emhoff, Bowen Yang as JD Vance, Jim Gaffigan as Tim Walz and Dana Carvey as Joe Biden. They’ve appeared in nearly the entire chilly opens to date this season.
Johnson’s Trump, carrying an orange vest, spoke to a rally in a meandering model — what the actual Trump has known as “the weave” — as he veered from voter fraud to Liz Cheney to his want to “defend girls, whether or not they prefer it or not.”
“When you’re well-known, they allow you to defend them. Seize them proper by the safety,” Trump stated. “Keep in mind that? Possibly not.”
The sketch reduce to Rudolph’s Kamala and Emhoff watching Trump’s rally, as she ready to offer her last Pennsylvania speech.
“Fox Information was telling their MAGA husbands that if their wives secretly vote for you it’s the identical as dishonest,” Emhoff stated.
“Nicely, I want I had the time to personally knock on the door of any of those girls and say, Woman.”
“And what does woman imply?” Emhoff requested.
“It means, Woman.“
After visits from Biden and Walz, and after Emhoff leaves the dressing room, Harris puzzled, “I simply want I might discuss to somebody who’s been in my sneakers. You realize, a Black South Asian lady working for president, ideally from the Bay Space.”
Then, the actual Harris appeared, on the opposite facet of a dressing desk mirror. The SNL viewers gave her 30 seconds of cheers and applause, earlier than she stated, “You and me each, sister.”
Harris and Rudolph did a playful rhyming riff on “Kamala,” ending with the 2 saying in unison, “Hold Kamala and carry-on-ala!”
After she left 30 Rock and arrived at La Guardia, Harris was requested in regards to the cameo. “It was enjoyable,” she stated.
Earlier than Harris’ look, FCC commissioner Brendan Carr, who was nominated by Trump, complained that the cameo was “a transparent and blatant effort to evade the FCC’s equal time rule. The aim of the rule is to keep away from precisely the sort of biased and partisan conduct — a licensed broadcaster utilizing the general public airwaves to exert its affect for one candidate on the eve of an election.”
The present doesn’t fall underneath the information exemptions for the FCC’s equal time rule. When Trump hosted SNL in 2015, NBC stations had been pressured to offer equal time to different Republican main candidates. However the community shouldn’t be required to hunt out different candidates, based on the FCC, however might have to supply comparable time if requested.
