NBC News was compelled to air a campaign ad from President Donald Trump on Sunday evening in response to Kamala Harris’s controversial appearance on “Saturday Night Live” (SNL) just days before the election, which violated the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Equal Time rule.
Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live.
Just last month, SNL said they banned Trump and Harris cameos because of election laws, so what changed?
“You can’t bring the actual people who are running on because of election laws and the equal time provisions,” executive producer Lorne Michaels 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.”
According to FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, that appearance from Kamala may have violated the equal time rule.
In a post on social media platform X, Carr highlighted the legal implications of such an appearance on the public airwaves just days before the upcoming election:
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. Unless the broadcaster offered Equal Time to other qualifying campaigns.
In the 2016 cycle, President Obama’s FCC Chair made clear that the agency would enforce the Equal Time rule when candidate Trump went on SNL. NBC stations publicly filed Equal Opportunity notices to ensure that all other qualifying candidates could obtain Equal Time if they sought it. Stations did the same thing when Clinton appeared on SNL.
Federal law requires that broadcasters provide comparable time and placement to all legally qualified candidates when the Equal Time rule is triggered. 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?
Just weeks ago, SNL’s Lorne Michaels said that they *would not* be bringing any of the candidates on due to election and equal time laws: “‘You can’t bring the actual people who are running on because of election laws and the equal time provisions,’ Michaels said.”
NBC has now filed a notice acknowledging that they provided free airtime last night to the Democratic Party’s nominee within the meaning of the FCC’s Equal Time rule.
There’s another complicating factor here given that NBC’s SNL initially said that no candidates would appear on SNL b/c of the federal Equal Time rule. Since SNL made a secret 180 only 50 hours or so before election day, their decision runs into the seven-day rule component of the Equal Time statute. The FCC’s seven-day rule affords qualifying candidates one week to request their Equal Time from the broadcast station.
The FCC adopted the seven-day rule to avoid gamesmanship by candidates (usually gamesmanship by the candidate seeking the Equal Time in the exemplar case) and for orderly planning (usually for the broadcaster). But the one week right also allows the candidate seeking the Equal Time an opportunity to plan for their use of the time that the law affords them.
Maybe they don’t have material in the can or maybe they want to cut a new ad or maybe they want a couple of days to prepare for their Equal Time. They would need some time for that. And the rule does not require candidates to choose between a snap response or none at all.
Nonetheless, NBC structured the SNL candidate appearance (just hours before an election) in a way that denies all other candidates their one week procedural right.
NBC has also filed an Equal Time notice for providing a free SNL appearance to a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate.
During NBC’s Sunday night NASCAR coverage, former President Trump’s campaign ad was played, with Trump delivering a pointed message to voters. Wearing his iconic red “Make America Great Again” cap, Trump warned that electing Harris would bring “depression” to America, urging viewers to make their voices heard at the polls.
This ad, airing across both NASCAR and NBC’s Sunday Night Football post-game coverage, provided Trump with a total of 120 seconds on the network—an apparent effort by NBC to meet the Equal Time rule’s requirements, according to The Hollywood Reporters.
WATCH:
Jim Hᴏft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016.
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