Kamala Harris poked fun at Donald Trump’s struggles with garbage trucks by making a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live just days before America goes to the polls.
The vice president, who starred in the 50th season of Maya Rudolph’s comedy series, flew to New York after a campaign event in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Harris made an unscheduled stop on her way to Detroit, Michigan, with Air Force Two landing at LaGuardia Airport in Queens. This was the show’s final episode before Tuesday’s crucial election day.
She appeared opposite Rudolph after the actress looked in a mirror and said she wished she could “talk to someone who was in my shoes.”
The camera then panned to the reflection in the mirror, where the beaming vice president sat, receiving cheers from the studio audience.
“You and me, sister,” Harris told Rudolph.
“It’s nice to see you Kamala,” Harris said. “I’m just here to remind you that you have this. You can do something your opponent can’t do, like open doors.
The joke came just days after a viral video of Trump struggling to climb through the door of a garbage truck in Wisconsin while wearing a fluorescent orange safety vest.
In October, series creator Lorne Michaels said The Hollywood Reporter that SNL had not contacted any candidates and had no plans to do so.
“You can’t bring in the real candidates because of the election laws and the equal time provisions,” Michaels said of the FCC’s rules on equal time for candidates.
“You can’t have the major candidates without having all the candidates, and there are a lot of minor candidates who are only on the ballot in three states, and it gets really complicated.”
This season, in addition to Rudolph as Harris, James Austin Johnson played Trump, while Jim Gaffigan and Bowen Yang took on the roles of Tim Walz and JD Vance.
Dana Carvey starred as Joe Biden and Andy Samberg played Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff.
Trump senior adviser Jason Miller told The Associated Press he was surprised Harris appeared on the show, and he said he had not been complimentary to her.
When asked if Trump had been invited to appear on SNL, he told AP: “I don’t know. Probably not.
This is not the first time that prominent political guests have made appearances on the show.
In 2007, President Barack Obama, then a candidate, appeared on the show, initially hidden under a Halloween mask,
Hillary Clinton, who was also a candidate that year, also made an appearance.
Sarah Palin, who was the vice presidential candidate on John McCain’s ticket, appeared a few weeks before the election.
Donald Trump hosted the show in 2015 as a candidate for the Republican nomination for the 2016 election, which he won.
