After Harris’ SNL Visit, Here’s How NBC Made Good on ‘Equal Time’ for Trump

NBC gave former President Donald Trump 90 seconds of free ad time Sunday following concerns that Vice President Kamala Harris’ cameo on this weekend’s Saturday Night Live may have violated the FCC’s Equal Time Rule.

“NBC and Comcast reached out yesterday to give our campaign the opportunity to satisfy the equal time requirement,” a Trump campaign official told our sister site Deadline. “President Trump filmed the direct-to-camera video after yesterday’s PA rally.”

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Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed Commissioner for the FCC, flagged the situation Saturday on X, just two hours before SNL’s broadcast began.

“This is a clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC’s Equal Time rule,” he wrote. “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. Unless the broadcaster offered Equal Time to other qualifying campaigns.”

Former FCC Chair Reed Hundt responded to and challenged Carr’s statement writing, “I was FCC chair. Brendan Carr is wrong. He’s clearly and blatantly trying to help Trump campaign. That’s also wrong.”

The Equal Time Rule requires broadcasters to provide rival candidates comparable time, however, news programming is exempt. The FCC rules do not require that a network seek out opposing campaigns to offer the time; the rival candidates must request it. In addition, stations do not have to give opposing candidates identical time, but it must be comparable.

An NBC official said the network “accommodated the Trump campaign’s request for equal time consistent with our regulatory obligations.” It was reported that Harris “appeared without charge” on SNL for one minute and 30 seconds, which is the amount of time the network allotted Trump during its NASCAR Playoffs race and NFL game.

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