It felt somewhat inevitable that the real-life Kamala Harris would eventually respond to Maya Rudolph’s impression of her on Saturday Night Live by showing up to the show in person, but the audience in 8H was still evidently delighted when the vice president and 2024 Democratic candidate dropped by this Saturday to appear in SNL’s cold open alongside Rudolph.
“I wish I could talk to someone who was in my shoes,” Rudolph-as-Harris lamented, wishing out loud that there were “a Black, South Asian woman running for president” to advise her ahead of Election Day before peering into a mirror. And there, peering out the other side, was the real Harris, dressed in her own black blazer, dark top, and string of pearls. She greeted her double with a: “You and me both, sister.”
“I don’t really laugh like that, do I?” Harris later asked before she and Rudolph launched into a mutual pump-up speech about the election’s significance. Eventually, the two took the stage side by side. “I’m voting for us,” Rudolph-as-Harris told the actual vice president before they shouted the show’s signature “Live from New York, it’s Saturday night!” tagline directly into the camera together.
The final episode of Saturday Night Live before the presidential election on November 5 was likely to make headlines even before Harris’s drop-by, largely due to the fact that the week’s host was the frequently discourse-generating comedian, former SNL writer and six-time host John Mulaney (and the musical guest was singer Chappell Roan, whom nobody has ever been normal about.) In addition to Harris’s cameo, SNL alum Andy Samberg reprised his role as Harris’s besotted husband Doug Emhoff and current cast member Bowen Yang somehow became J.D. Vance once again; ultimately, though, even Harris’s brief appearance made her the scene-stealer of the night.