Three days before the election, Kamala Harris made a cameo during the Saturday Night Live cold open, sharing some words with the woman who plays her, Maya Rudolph, as she prepared to give her final Pennsylvania speech of the presidential campaign.
“I’m just here to remind you, you got this, because you can do something your opponent cannot do: You can open doors,” the real Harris said to Rudolph’s Kamala, making a joke about Donald Trump’s trash-truck stunt this past week.
Rudolph’s Kamala then let out a laugh — something that has been the source of Trump’s mockery.
“I don’t really laugh like that, do I?” the real Harris asked.
“Ahhhh…a little bit,” Rudolph’s Kamala responded.
The skit was a boost for Harris, as it featured a weary and exhausted Trump (James Austin Johnson) flailing at one of his rallies and gave the real vice president a chance to make a pitch.
“I’m going to vote for us!” Rudolph’s Kamala said at the conclusion of the sketch.
“Any chance you are registered in Pennsylvania?” the real Harris asked.
“Nope, I am not,” Rudolph said.
“Well, it is worth a shot,” the real Harris said, before they both shouted, “Live from New York, It’s Saturday Night!”
Harris and Rudolph appeared together before, at a Zoom virtual fundraiser for the Biden-Harris campaign in 2020, when they were also joined by Hillary Clinton and her SNL doppelganger, Amy Poehler.
Word that Harris would do a cameo leaked earlier this evening, and became obvious once her campaign pool did a stop in New York and then to 30 Rockefeller Center, arriving around 8 p.m. ET.
Harris’ appearance was the first of a presidential nominee since John McCain made an appearance on the show in 2008, also just days before the election. Nikki Haley was the last presidential candidate to appear, in a cameo earlier this year. Donald Trump’s last appearance was in November 2015, when he hosted the show in the midst of the Republican primary.
In addition to 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 have appeared in almost all of the cold opens so far this season.
Johnson’s Trump, wearing an orange vest, spoke to a rally in a meandering style — what the real Trump has called “the weave” — as he veered from voter fraud to Liz Cheney to his desire to “protect women, whether they like it or not.”
“When you are famous, they let you protect them. Grab them right by the protection,” Trump said. “Remember that? Maybe not.”
The sketch cut to Rudolph’s Kamala and Emhoff watching Trump’s rally, as she prepared to give her final Pennsylvania speech.
“Fox News was telling their MAGA husbands that if their wives secretly vote for you it’s the same as cheating,” Emhoff said.
“Well, I wish I had the time to personally knock on the door of any of these women and say, Girl.”
“And what does girl mean?” Emhoff asked.
“It means, Girl.“
After visits from Biden and Walz, and after Emhoff leaves the dressing room, Harris wondered, “I just wish I could talk to someone who’s been in my shoes. You know, a Black South Asian woman running for president, preferably from the Bay Area.”
Then, the real Harris appeared, on the other side of a dressing table mirror. The SNL audience gave her 30 seconds of cheers and applause, before she said, “You and me both, sister.”
Harris and Rudolph did a playful rhyming riff on “Kamala,” ending with the two saying in unison, “Keep Kamala and carry-on-ala!”
After she left 30 Rock and arrived at La Guardia, Harris was asked about the cameo. “It was fun,” she said.
Before Harris’ appearance, FCC commissioner Brendan Carr, who was nominated by Trump, complained that the cameo was “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.”
The show does not fall under the news exemptions for the FCC’s equal time rule. When Trump hosted SNL in 2015, NBC stations were forced to give equal time to other Republican primary candidates. But the network is not required to seek out other candidates, according to the FCC, but may have to offer comparable time if requested.
