NBC gave Donald Trump’s campaign two free commercial slots on Sunday following backlash that the network may have flouted the Federal Communications Commission’s “equal time” rules with Kamala Harris’s Saturday Night Live appearance.
The former president took to the airwaves delivering a bruising 60-second, pre-recorded message, which was shown towards the end of both the NFL Sunday Night Football game and Sunday evening’s NASCAR playoff race.
Sporting a red MAGA hat, Trump urged viewers to get out and vote just two days from Election Day, warning that Harris would trigger a “depression” across the US, according to the clip seen by Hollywood Reporter.
A source told the outlet that Trump’s unexpected appearance marked a bid from the network to comply with the FCC’s equal time fairness rules – stating that broadcasters must provide equivalent access to competing political candidates during an election cycle.
It is not clear whether the Trump campaign requested the slot or if it was offered by NBC.
Trump’s message came a day after Harris poked fun at Trump during a surprise cameo on SNL this weekend in a 90-second skit.
The vice president took a detour from her Michigan campaign stop to fly to New York City to appear in the show’s cold opening with Maya Rudolph – who has played the Democratic candidate this season.
The pair took a jab at Trump, who last week donned a fluorescent orange high-vis vest and struggled to get into a garbage truck during a campaign stunt in Wisconsin.
Her appearance came after the show’s creator Lorne Michaels told the Hollywood Reporter last month that SNL had not approached any candidate and had no plans to do so “because of election laws and the equal time provisions.”
On Saturday, senior advisor Jason Miller told the Associated Press that he didn’t know if the former president had been invited on the show, before adding: “Probably not.”
NBC then filed a notice stating that Harris appeared “without charge” on Sunday.
But FCC commissioner Brendan Carr took to X to claim that Harris’s appearance was a “clear and blatant effort to evade” the government-run television and radio regulatory body’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,” Carr said on Saturday evening.
“Unless the broadcaster offered Equal Time to other qualifying campaigns.”
Late on Sunday, Carr citied the FCC rule which he said states a broadcaster should allow one week for a candidate to request their equal time – despite the SNL clip airing three days from Election Day.
He added: “NBC structured the SNL candidate appearance (just hours before an election) in a way that denies all other candidates their one week procedural right.”
The Trump campaign also took a swipe at Harris’s SNL appearance on Saturday.
“Kamala Harris has nothing substantive to offer the American people, so that’s why she’s living out her warped fantasy cosplaying with her elitist friends on Saturday Night Leftists as her campaign spirals down the drain into obscurity,” campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement to Fox News.
The Independent has contacted NBC and the Trump campaign for further comment.
