COOL. I’LL BET THE PLANE HAS MORE COMEDY CHOPS THAN SHE DOES: Kamala Harris campaign plane redirected to NYC for surprise Saturday Night Live cameo.
Vice President Kamala Harris added a previously unannounced stop in New York City to her schedule for a surprise cameo on Saturday Night Live.
She is appearing on NBC’s hit late-night show with just three days to go before the election, in a move designed to reach millions of TV viewers, even if it’s at the expense of another swing state event.
Harris is likely to come face-to-face with SNL veteran cast member Maya Rudolph, who was specifically cast to play the vice president after Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
The visit is the latest in a long line of appearances by presidential candidates on the show, which celebrated its 50th anniversary this year.
Although the nature of her appearance was being kept under close wraps, it could also bring in Dana Carvey continues to skewer President Joe Biden’s speaking style, and James Austin Johnson, who plays Trump.
The surprise visit to New York came during the final laps of the campaign, when travel schedules sometimes reveal where a candidate is making their strongest play.
I don’t think Kamala still needs to lock down the votes of the SNL audience, but this will certainly help her garner more ink tomorrow morning, given that show now largely exists to provide Sunday column fodder for Beltway journalists. As John Hinderaker wrote in 2017 at Power Line, political reporters and wire services love to recap SNL episodes, because it allows them to get their biases in print while still maintaining a thin veneer of objectivity. “‘Respectable’ news outlets like the AP can’t publish absurd comedy skits ripping President Trump, much as they might like to,” Hinderaker wrote. “But by covering Saturday Night Live, they turn such meaningless attacks into fake ‘news.’” And she’ll have the show’s writers (and her own) scripting everything she says, unlike what would have been a likely trainwreck appearance on the longform Joe Rogan Show.