Read All 70 FCC Complaints About SNL’s Kamala Harris Cameo

For many of the more than 6.5 million viewers who tuned in to watch John Mulaney host the Nov. 2 episode of Saturday Night Live, witnessing Kamala Harris crash the show’s cold open just three days before the presidential election was a fun surprise. Not so much for others, who chose to share their displeasure with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) . 

As The Hill‘s Judy Kurtz first reported Wednesday, the FCC received 70 complaints in response to Harris’ SNL appearance.

As Kurtz wrote, the vast majority of these complaints argued that Harris’ SNL cameo violated the FCC’s “equal time” rule, which requires that broadcasters offer equal time on their airwaves to all candidates.

This applies to both paid advertising as well as free appearances, outside of news coverage—in this case, a cameo on a late-night sketch comedy show.

Before the episode had even aired, Brendan Carr—Donald Trump’s pick for FCC commissioner—took to X (formerly Twitter) to describe Harris’ cameo as “a clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC’s Equal Time rule.” The argument for it being an evasion was due to the cameo coming just days before Election Day, without time for the Trump campaign to demand its own SNL appearance.

NBC did its best to preempt further criticism by giving Donald Trump free advertising during two major network events, NASCAR’s Xfinity 500 race and a Colts-Vikings football game, both of which aired the next day on Sunday, Nov. 3 (less than 24 hours after Harris’ SNL drop-in). But the resolution wasn’t fast, or robust, enough for all viewers, as is evident from the 70+ complaints obtained by The Hill via a Freedom of Information Act request.

One Virginia watcher, who seemed confused by the “equal” part of the rule, complained: “SNL refused to allow presidential candidate Donald Trump to host SNL. However, in the last days leading up to the Presidential election SNL secretly brought Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris on to the show for an appearance. NBC should have their license revoked for blatantly violating the law.”

It’s unknown if Trump had sought his own cameo on the show, and so far as we know, no candidate was asked (or offered) to host the program. Trump’s own November 2015 spot hosting the show, during the Republican presidential primary, is the closest a candidate has come to hosting SNL while running for the presidency.

One viewer from Oklahoma who described themselves as a Libertarian stated they weren’t just looking for just equal air time for Trump; they wanted it for third-party candidates Chase Oliver (their preferred choice) and Jill Stein, too.

The lack of airtime given to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. irked more than one complainant; it wasn’t clear from their letters whether they knew he had dropped out of the race and thrown his support to Trump.

In Ohio, an aggrieved voter’s anger extended beyond Lorne Michaels and NBC. “Why are you allowing 60 Minutes to run a story disparaging President Trump two days before the election?,” they asked in their official complaint. “They could have run this story any time in the last year and failed to do so. Does the FCC not care about fair elections?”

“And why was Kamala Harris on SNL last night?,” the constituent continued. “Are they running a special show on Monday night with Trump on it? Seems to me the entire media are biased against Trump.”

It didn’t help that Lorne Michaels had previously publicly nixed the idea of inviting any presidential candidates onto the show, specifically citing the equal time rules. “You can’t bring the actual people who are running on because of election laws and the equal time provisions,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.

Michaels added at the time, “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.” It’s unclear if this was an intentional red herring from Michaels or if something had since changed his view.

More than one person demanded that NBC have its broadcasting license revoked. An Arizona viewer suggested, “A fine equal to or exceeding NBC’s parent company Comcast annual profits for 2023 of $37 billion or more should be sufficient to prevent future violations!”

It should be noted that, while NBC affiliates have licenses that could be threatened—including some stations owned by NBC’s corporate parent, Comcast—the network itself doesn’t have a license of its own to revoke.

In Florida, a disgusted viewer decided that disqualifying Harris from the election altogether was the best way to turn this into a teachable moment. “She needs to be held accountable so no one can try to do it again in the future,” they wrote.

Meanwhile, someone claiming to be from “Go to Hell, Alabama” sent a 31-word complaint where only about half the words would be acceptable to repeat or reprint. Another viewer, watching from Nevada, put similar feelings in slightly less offensive terms: 

“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. NBC should be punished for this stunt. Though I will not hold my breath due to all the liberal a**hats that run the FCC.”

The full cache of FCC complaints can be viewed in its entirety below: