Harris Plays Herself in Short ‘Saturday Night Live’ Sketch

Jennifer Epstein and Akayla Gardner
·3-min read

(Bloomberg) -- Vice President Kamala Harris made her debut appearance on NBC’s Saturday Night Live, grabbing the media spotlight and taking a few jabs at opponent Donald Trump.

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In the television show’s open, actress Maya Rudolph — portraying the vice president — sat down in front of a mirror to give herself a pre-election pep talk. The actual Harris was there on set, looking back at her.

“I’m just here to remind you — you got this, because you can do something your opponent cannot do. You can open doors,” Harris told Rudolph, a joke with double meaning that was also meant to mock Trump for struggling to open a garbage truck door during a campaign stunt this week.

Harris and Rudolph traded lines in a riff that rhymed with Kamala, a playful nod to the vice president’s name.

“Now Kamala, take my palm-ala. The American people want to stop the chaos,” Rudolph began. “And end the dram-ala,” Harris said.

“With a cool, new stepmom-ala. Get back in our pajam-alas and watch a rom-com-ala,” Rudolph added. “Like Legally Blonde-ala,” Harris responded.

“And start decorating for Christmas. Fa-la-la-la-la. Because what do we always say?” Rudolph asked.

“Keep Kamala and carry on-ala,” they chimed in together.

In response to the sketch, Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, accused Harris of copying a 2015 Trump skit on The Tonight Show, which also involved a mirror.

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Harris — who has shied away from riskier, unscripted appearances for most of her short campaign — hit the comedic timing in the less than three-minute skit. She also poked fun at her tendency to laugh loudly and frequently, something Trump has mocked her about.

The impromptu segment in New York, on a program that’s a cultural touch-point for both the country and the city, comes less than a week after Trump hosted a rally at Madison Square Garden. That event was marked by his allies’ making racist and misogynist statements, including a comedian who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.”

Harris’ appearance came just hours after a new poll showed her receiving a surprising boost of support in a reliably Republican state: Iowa.

A Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll shows Harris with a 3 percentage-point lead in the state over Trump, which last voted for a Democrat for president in 2012. The survey, conducted by famously reliable pollster Ann Selzer, is seen as a bellwether for how Harris may perform in nearby Wisconsin, particularly among women.

Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio in a memo called the poll a “clear outlier,” and pointed to an Emerson College poll also released Saturday that found Trump with a 10-point lead in Iowa.

Polls in recent weeks have shown Harris and Trump deadlocked in the seven battleground states that are likely to decide the election.

Presidential aspirants have a long history of appearing on the comedy-sketch show as a way to reach voters who don’t consume traditional sources of news. Harris and Trump both are seeking to win over low-propensity voters in what polls show is a close race.

SNL draws millions of live viewers, but short clips of Harris’ appearance are likely to reverberate widely on social media, popping up in feeds just as some voters are making final decisions about how — or whether — to vote.

Harris’ team is particularly focused on turning out women of all ages, while Trump’s campaign has said they are trying to reach young men who haven’t been reliable voters in the past.

Trump separately hosted SNL in 2015 while running for the Republican presidential nomination for the first time. The show faced criticism for giving him the platform that helped propel his path to the presidency. Nikki Haley also appeared on the show in February as she mounted her long-shot bid to challenge Trump for the Republican nomination.

--With assistance from Josh Wingrove.

(Updates throughout.)

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