Presidential candidate Donald Trump would have benefited from free airtime BNC After Kamala Harris appeared on Saturday evening live this weekend.

The Democratic candidate appeared on the program for approximately 1 minute and 30 seconds this weekend, meaning if another candidate requests it, they must be given the same amount of time under Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules. A Trump political ad aired during NBC’s NASCAR coverage and NFL coverage of the Minnesota Vikings-Indianapolis Colts game Sunday night.

Trump appeared in an ad of roughly the same length during post-race coverage, speaking directly to the camera while donning a “Make America Great Again” baseball cap. Telling Americans to go vote just days before the Nov. 5 presidential election, Trump said America would “end up in a depression.” if Harris is elected this week.

According to The Hollywood Reporter“a source familiar with the matter” said the ad was run to give it equal coverage under FCC guidelines, which state: “The FCC rules are intended to ensure that no legally qualified applicant for office unfairly benefits from less access to the airwaves – apart from exemptions from good faith information – than their adversary.

“Equal opportunity generally means providing comparable time and placement to opposing candidates; it does not require a station to provide opposing candidates with programming identical to that of the initiating candidate,” the rules state. A station is also not required to seek “legally qualified applicants and provide them with equal opportunity.”

News week contacted the Trump campaign team and NBC via email outside of normal business hours for clarification.

Brendan Carr, a senior Republican on the FCC, said Harris’ appearance on SNL, in which she joined actress Maya Rudolph by pretending to be her during its cold open, said NBC had made a “blatant effort to evade the FCC’s Equal Time rule.”

“The purpose of this rule is to avoid exactly this type of biased and partisan conduct: a licensed broadcaster using the public airwaves to exert influence in favor of a candidate on the eve of an election,” Carr said on X , formerly Twitter. “Unless the broadcaster offers Equal Time to other eligible campaigns.”

He said the decision to have Harris appear on the show went against the FCC’s seven-day rule, which “gives qualified applicants one week to request their equal time at the broadcast station.” He said this was in place to help an applicant prepare the relevant documents they wish to publish.

“They would need some time for that. And the rule doesn’t force applicants to choose between an instant response or no response at all,” he said.

Carr then posted on SNL.

Lorne Michaels, the executive producer of SNLsaid The Hollywood Reporter as of September of this year, neither candidate would appear on the show due to the FCC’s equal time rules.

“You can’t bring in the real candidates because of election laws and equal time provisions,” Michaels said. “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.”