Saturday Night Live has had political candidates on their show for the entirety of the 50+ years they have been on the air, but that has not stopped a member of Trump world from accusing them of giving an unfair advantage to Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee for President. So how did we get here? Well Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance on SNL which made fun of one of Trump’s infamous rallies, touched on his recent odd campaign stop that involved him riding in a garbage truck and then did a cold open skit staring at Maya Rudolph in the mirror as herself, which many said was a rip off of his 2015 SNL skit.
But never missing an opportunity to display a grievance, it was the FCC’s former General Counsel, Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee to the FCC who wrote his gripe on Twitter saying Kamala’s cold open was “a clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC’s Equal Time rule.” He continued, “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.”
Now mind you, the Trump campaign hasn’t complained but they didn’t have to when an appointee of the former President does it for you. The SEC has said that his statement does not represent the commission as a whole. NBC, however has now responded by offering Trump equal time on the network. And by law, that equal time does not, per se have to be on the same show. Now another reason we have gotten here is because of a general complaint Republicans have of unfairness by the mainstream media. Well that is because they generally are not liked and they only have themselves to blame for it. The numbers show it. They haven’t won the popular vote in 2 decades and if they were more likable, they wouldn’t have to fight so much for media access.
Let’s look back at history. John McCain was on SNL when Obama ran for President the first time with many calling foul saying Obama should have been given the chance and Obama never made a complaint about it. Trump has also said in recent years that he wouldn’t appear on SNL again after his 2015 cold open so why this is even a complaint is beyond us. Some people simply talk just to hear themselves talking. Source
Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore
