Harris joins ‘Saturday Night Live’ in last-minute campaign surprise
Vice President Kamala Harris appeared on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” in New York, making a surprise last-minute appearance that culminates a string of events designed to showcase Harris before voters who do not typically engage with traditional political media.
Harris joined the “cold open,” the first sketch of the show, which was set in a dressing room before a Harris campaign event in Pennsylvania. Maya Rudolph, a Saturday Night Live alum who has returned to the show to play Harris after she became the Democratic nominee, did an impression of Harris preparing for her final stop in the critical battleground state.
“Gosh, I just, I 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,” Rudolph, playing Harris, said as she looked in a mirror.
The actual vice president then appeared, to applause from the studio audience.
“It is nice to see you, Kamala, and I’m just here to remind you you’ve got this, because you can do something your opponent cannot do - you can open doors,” she said to Rudolph, mocking former president Donald Trump, who appeared to struggle while trying to open the door to a garbage truck last week while campaigning.
Rudolph and Harris then exchanged a set of jokes riffing on Harris’s first name.
“Now Kamala, take my palm-ala,” Rudolph said to Harris. “The American people want to stop the chaos.” “And end the drama-la,” Harris said. They concluded: “Keep Kamala and carry on-ala.”
Rudolph then said she was “voting for us,” and Harris asked if she was registered in Pennsylvania. (She’s not.)
The show, in its 50th season, was hosted Saturday by comedian John Mulaney and featured musical guest Chappell Roan, who notably has said she won’t make an endorsement in the election.
“Saturday Night Live” has attracted significant attention in recent weeks for its parodies of various figures in the presidential campaign, including Rudolph as Harris and Andy Samberg as Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff. James Austin Johnson has played Republican nominee Donald Trump, and Dana Carvey has impersonated President Joe Biden.
Samberg, Johnson and Carvey appeared in Saturday’s cold open sketch before Harris took the stage. Johnson portrayed Trump in an orange vest, which the former president donned recently as a way to tweak Biden for using the term “garbage” when discussing Trump’s supporters and racist rhetoric at a Trump rally last month.
Harris’s stop in New York City was a closely-held secret, with many officials finding out about the trip only when Air Force Two was redirected after leaving North Carolina on Saturday evening. Harris was initially scheduled to fly directly to Michigan, where she will campaign on Sunday. Midway through the flight, campaign officials told the reporters traveling with Harris that the plane was making a stop in New York.
Harris left New York City shortly after she was on the show, telling reporters that her appearance “was fun.”
Her appearance on SNL came in the final days of a campaign that has featured both candidates, and an array of surrogates, taking to nontraditional venues. With most Americans firmly in one camp or the other, the candidates are trying to communicate with a shrinking segment of voters who are less engaged with mainstream news organizations or political media.
Harris has appeared on podcasts like “Call Her Daddy,” which has a large audience of young women, and “All the Smoke,” hosted by former professional basketball players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, and attracts many Black male listeners. She has also appeared on ABC’s “The View,” which has a large female audience.
Trump has joined “The Joe Rogan Experience,” which has a following among young White men, and made various other podcast and television appearances.
Trump also has his own connections with “Saturday Night Live,” having hosted the show twice - including in 2015, when he was a presidential candidate. That appearance generated protests from those opposed to his candidacy, but the appearance was largely uneventful. An array of actors have played Trump on SNL, from Phil Hartman to Alec Baldwin.
Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama also appeared on the show while running for president.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) also made an appearance in a different segment Saturday night in a skit called, “What’s That Name?” where contestants must guess the name of individuals based on their photos.
Then Kaine appeared onstage. “I was Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential running mate,” he said. “At the time, you said it was the most important election in American history and that democracy was on the line. It’s been less than eight years. What’s my name?”
The contestants could not identify him.