(Headline USA) The Federal Communications Commission received more than 70 complaints after Vice President Kamala Harris’s Hail Mary appearance on Saturday Night Live just days before the presidential election.
The vast majority of the objections to Harris’s cameo argued the appearance violated the agency’s “equal time” rule, which requires major broadcast networks to provide equal air time to competing political candidates.
“I think it’s unconscionable for SNL to have only invited a single candidate onto their show this past Saturday,” a viewer from Austin, Texas, wrote in one complaint, according to The Hill. “It shows an extreme political bias and does not offer any other candidate the same opportunity to deliver their message.”
Another letter from a viewer in North Carolina called the Saturday Night Live stunt straight “propaganda.”
Yet another viewer in Nevada argued the cameo was clearly meant to sway the election in Harris’s favor.
“What a crock of crap that NBC pulled on the American people. That was a cheap shot by NBC and SNL to try and influence the presidential race,” the viewer wrote, urging the FCC to punish NBC.
Another viewer in Texas wrote, “The public airwaves belong to the people, and it is unacceptable for a major network to manipulate the political landscape to serve the interests of one candidate over others.”
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, whom Trump has since tapped to chair the agency in his new administration, raised concerns about Harris’s appearance as well.
In an apparent effort to avoid a crackdown, NBC News then aired a short video message from Trump the following day to provide him “equal” airtime.
Notably, the FCC publicly dismissed Carr’s concerns at the time, saying the agency had not “received a complaint from any interested parties.”
Carr’s concerns “do not represent those of the agency,” Jonathan S. Uriarte, the commission’s director of strategic communications, added.
