Harris appears on 'Saturday Night Live' as mirror image of Maya Rudolph with election looming

NEW YORK (AP) — Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance on “Saturday Night Live” in the final days before the presidential election, playing herself as the mirror-image double of Maya Rudolph’s version of her in the show's cold open.

The first lines the candidate spoke as she sat across from Rudolph, their outfits identical, were drowned out by cheers from the audience.

“It is nice to see you Kamala,” Harris told Rudolph with a broad grin she kept throughout the sketch. “And I’m just here to remind you, you got this.”

In sync, the two said supporters need to “Keep Kamala and carry-on-ala,” declared that they share each other’s “belief in the promise of America” and delivered the signature “Live from New York it’s Saturday night!”

Harris made the surprise trip to New York before Tuesday's election, taking a brief break from the battleground states where she has been campaigning. With the appearance on NBC's sketch comedy show, the Democratic nominee was hoping to generate buzz and appeal to a nationwide audience.

Harris had left Charlotte, North Carolina and was scheduled to head to Detroit, but once in the air, aides said she would be landing elsewhere. The appearance was only confirmed by Harris' team moments before the live airing began.

The vice president arrived at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, where "SNL" tapes, shortly after 8 p.m., enough time for a quick rehearsal before the show aired live at 11:30 p.m. It was the final "SNL" episode before Election Day.

She left immediately after the opening segment and told reporters, “It was fun!” as she boarded her plane for Michigan.

Host John Mulaney and musical guest Chappell Roan shifted the show away from politics. Neither addressed the election.

Some expected Roan, the 26-year-old singer who has become a major star in recent months, to make a political statement in her first appearance on the show. She has previously been harshly critical of the Democratic Party and declined to endorse Harris in her campaign against Republican Donald Trump, although Roan has said several times she plans to vote for her.

Roan sang her hit “Pink Pony Club," on an all-pink set bathed in pink light and made no remarks.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., also made a surprise appearance, in a game-show sketch where the gag was that no one remembered him despite his being Hillary Clinton's running mate in 2016.

“It’s been less than eight years. What’s my name?,” he said, as the contestants stood silent and flummoxed.

Rudolph first played Harris on the show in 2019 and has reprised her role this season, doing a spot-on impression of the vice president, including calling herself “Momala” — a reference to the affectionate nickname that Harris' stepchildren gave her.

Fellow former cast member Andy Samberg appeared again as Harris’ husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff. Standup comic Jim Gaffigan played Harris' running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Dana Carvey, best known on the show for playing President George H.W. Bush in the late 1980s, stood in for President Joe Biden.

Rudolph’s performance has won critical and comedic acclaim, including from Harris herself.

“Maya Rudolph — I mean, she’s so good,” Harris said last month on ABC’s “The View.” “She had the whole thing, the suit, the jewelry, everything!”

Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump, expressed surprise that Harris would appear on “SNL” given what Miller characterized as her unflattering portrayal on the show. Asked if Trump had been invited to appear, Miller said: “I don’t know. Probably not.”

Politicians nonetheless have a long history on "SNL," including Trump, who hosted the show in 2015. But appearing so close to Election Day is unusual.

Clinton was running in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary when she appeared next to Amy Poehler, who played her on the show and was known for launching into a trademark, exaggerated cackle. The real Clinton wondered during her appearance, “Do I really laugh like that?”

Harris repeated that line in response to Rudolph’s portrayal of her laugh in Saturday’s episode.

Clinton returned in 2016, when she was running against Trump, who won that election.

The first sitting president to appear on "SNL" was Republican Gerald Ford, who did so less than a year after the show debuted. Ford appeared in April 1976 on an episode hosted by his press secretary, Ron Nessen, and declared, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night.”

Then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama appeared alongside Poehler impersonating Clinton in 2007. Republican Bob Dole was on the show in November 1996 -- a mere 11 days after losing that year’s election to Bill Clinton. Dole consoled Norm Macdonald, who played the Kansas senator.

Then there was Tina Fey’s 2008 impression of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin — and in particular her joke that “I can see Russia from my house.” It was so good that Fey won an Emmy and Palin herself appeared on the show that October, in the weeks before the election.

Long, Miller and Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in New York and Andrew Dalton in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris appears on NBC's "Saturday Night Live," with Maya Rudolph, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024 in New York. Harris has made an unannounced trip to New York to appear briefly stepping away from the battleground states she's been campaigning in with just three days to go before the election. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris appears on NBC's "Saturday Night Live," with Maya Rudolph, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024 in New York. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris appears on NBC's "Saturday Night Live," with Maya Rudolph, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024 in New York. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, right, appears on NBC's "Saturday Night Live," with Maya Rudolph, left, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024 in New York. Harris has made an unannounced trip to New York to appear briefly stepping away from the battleground states she's been campaigning in with just three days to go before the election. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris appears on NBC's "Saturday Night Live," with Maya Rudolph, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024 in New York. Harris has made an unannounced trip to New York to appear briefly stepping away from the battleground states she's been campaigning in with just three days to go before the election. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris appears on NBC's "Saturday Night Live," with Maya Rudolph, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024 in New York. Harris has made an unannounced trip to New York to appear briefly stepping away from the battleground states she's been campaigning in with just three days to go before the election. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, right, appears on NBC's "Saturday Night Live," with Maya Rudolph, left, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024 in New York. Harris has made an unannounced trip to New York to appear briefly stepping away from the battleground states she's been campaigning in with just three days to go before the election. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, right, appears on NBC's "Saturday Night Live," with Maya Rudolph, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024 in New York. Harris has made an unannounced trip to New York to appear briefly stepping away from the battleground states she's been campaigning in with just three days to go before the election. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris arrives at LaGuardia Airport, Saturday night, Nov. 2, 2024, in East Elmhurst, N.Y. Harris has made an unannounced trip to New York to appear on an episode of “Saturday Night Live,” briefly stepping away from the battleground states she’s been campaigning in with just three days to go before the election. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris arrives at LaGuardia Airport, Saturday night, Nov. 2, 2024, in East Elmhurst, N.Y. Harris has made an unannounced trip to New York to appear on an episode of “Saturday Night Live,” briefly stepping away from the battleground states she’s been campaigning in with just three days to go before the election. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Hezbollah fired into a disputed border zone held by Israel on Monday. The militant group said the volley, its first during the truce, was a warning shot in response to what it called repeated Israeli truce violations.

Israeli leaders threatened to retaliate and within hours, Israel’s military carried out its biggest wave of strikes in southern Lebanon. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said an Israeli airstrike on a village killed five people, while another airstrike killed four. Israeli strikes had already killed two people on Monday before the Hezbollah attack.

Both sides accuse each other of violating the ceasefire, which began Wednesday. Israel says that under the truce deal it reserves the right to retaliate for Hezbollah violations.

Hezbollah began launching its attacks on Israel last year in solidarity with Hamas militants who are fighting in the Gaza Strip. The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 people hostage.

Israel’s blistering retaliatory offensive has killed at least 44,429 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were combatants. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

The war in Gaza has destroyed vast areas of the coastal enclave and displaced 90% of the population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders says Israel “is committing war crimes & ethnic cleansing in Gaza.”

The Vermont lawmaker said he agreed with a former top Israeli general and defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, who accused the government of ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza, where the army has sealed off the towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya and the Jabaliya refugee camp and allowed almost no humanitarian aid to enter.

“You don’t fight terrorism by starving people & killing tens of thousands of civilians,” Sanders said Monday in a post on social media.

Last month, the Senate rejected attempts by Sanders to block sales of offensive weapons to Israel over mounting civilian deaths in Gaza.

WASHINGTON — U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is demanding the immediate release of Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza, saying that if they are not freed before he is sworn into office for a second term there will be “HELL TO PAY.”

“Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social site.

He added that, “Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!”

It was not immediately clear whether Trump was threatening to directly involve the U.S. military in Israel’s ongoing campaign against Hamas in Gaza. Trump allies have said he hopes there will be a ceasefire and hostage release deal before he returns to office early next year.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 people hostage on Oct. 7, 2023. Some 100 are still held inside Gaza, around two-thirds believed to be alive.

WASHINGTON — Senior American officials have had conversations with Israelis to raise questions about some of the strikes they have carried out against Hezbollah since a ceasefire went into place but have not found the Israelis to be in gross violation of the terms of the ceasefire, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter.

The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly about the sensitive conversations with the Israelis, said those conversations were part of a mechanism that was created to ensure that ceasefire agreement is implemented. “This is that mechanism working,” the official added.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby on Monday that “largely speaking the ceasefire is holding.”

“We’ve gone from, you know dozens of strikes, you know, down to one a day maybe two a day,” Kirby told told reporters aboard Air Force One as President Joe Biden made his way for a visit to Angola. “That’s a tremendous, tremendous reduction. And we’re going to keep trying and see what we can do to get it down to zero so that both sides are fully implementing it. But, this is, this is the only it’s only a, a week or so old.”

— By Aamer Madhani

JERUSALEM — Hezbollah fired into a disputed border zone held by Israel on Monday, the militant group’s first attack since its ceasefire with Israel took hold last week, after Lebanon accused Israel of violating the truce more than 50 times in recent days.

The Israeli military said two projectiles were launched toward Mount Dov, a disputed Israeli-held territory known as Shebaa Farms in Lebanon, where the borders of Lebanon, Syria, and Israel meet. Israel said the projectiles fell in open areas and no injuries were reported.

Hezbollah said in a statement that it fired on an Israeli military position in the area as a “defensive and warning response” after what it called “repeated violations” of the ceasefire deal by Israel. It said complaints to mediators tasked with monitoring the ceasefire “were futile in stopping these violations.”

The U.S.- and French-brokered ceasefire came into effect on Wednesday calling for a 60-day halt in fighting, aiming to end more than a year of exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israel.

Since then, Israel has carried out a number of strikes in Lebanon, most recently on Monday, when a drone strike killed a man on a motorcycle in southern Lebanon and another hit a Lebanese army bulldozer in the northeastern town of Hermel, wounding a soldier. The Lebanese army had stayed on the sidelines of the war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Israel says the strikes are in response to Hezbollah violations of the ceasefire, without giving specifics.

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s parliament speaker on Monday accused Israel of committing 54 breaches of the ceasefire that ended the war between Hezbollah and Israel, demanding urgent intervention to halt what he called “flagrant violations.”

Speaking to the Lebanese newspaper Al Joumhouria, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri condemned Israel’s “aggressive actions,” including the alleged demolition of homes in border villages, the persistent overflight of Israeli reconnaissance drones, and airstrikes that have caused casualties.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Berri’s assertions. Israel says it reserves the right under the ceasefire deal to respond to perceived ceasefire violations.

An Israeli drone strike on Monday hit a Lebanese army military bulldozer in the northeastern town of Hermel, wounding a soldier, the Lebanese army said in a statement.

Also on Monday, an Israeli drone strike targeting a motorcycle in Jdeidet Marjayoun in southern Lebanon killed one person, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. In Bint Jbeil province, a drone strike injured one person, the state-run National News Agency said.

On Saturday, two people were killed in an airstrike on Marjayoun province, Lebanon’s state media said.

Berri called on the technical committee established to monitor the ceasefire to take immediate action, urging it to “oblige Israel to halt its violations and withdraw from Lebanese territories without delay.”

He said that Lebanon and Hezbollah have fully adhered to the terms of the ceasefire since the early hours of Wednesday. Berri is the leader of the Shiite Amal movement, which is closely allied with the Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said Monday one person was killed in an Israeli drone strike that hit a motorcycle, while the Lebanese army said that a soldier was wounded in an Israeli strike on a military bulldozer at an army base.

The Israeli military said that it carried out a series of strikes in Lebanon on Sunday and Monday, including one in the same area where the soldier was said to have been wounded. It said it struck several military vehicles in Lebanon’s Bekaa province as well as strikes on Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon.

The incidents underscored the fragility of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah reached after nearly 14 months of cross-border fighting.

Since the ceasefire went into effect on Wednesday, Israel has struck several times in response to what it says have been ceasefire violations by Hezbollah. Lebanon has accused Israel of violating the deal but so far Hezbollah has not resumed its rocket fire.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on Monday rejected accusations that Israel is violating the tenuous ceasefire agreement, saying it was responding to Hezbollah violations.

In a post on X, Saar said that he made that point in a call with his French counterpart, Jean-Noël Barrot. France, along with the U.S., helped broker the deal and is part of an international monitoring committee meant to ensure the sides uphold their commitments.

Israel says that it reserves the right under the deal to respond to perceived ceasefire violations.

TEL AVIV, Israel — The Israeli military said Monday an Israeli American soldier who was believed to have been taken hostage alive on Oct. 7, 2023, is now presumed to have been killed during Hamas’ attack and his body taken into Gaza.

Neutra, 21, was a New York native who enlisted in the Israeli military and was captured when Hamas attacked southern Israel. Neutra’s parents, Ronen and Orna, led a public campaign while he was thought to be alive for their son’s freedom. They spoke at protests in the U.S. and Israel, addressed the Republican National Convention this year and kept up ties with the Biden administration in their crusade to secure their son’s release.

In a statement announcing the death, the military did not say how it came to the conclusion over Neutra’s fate. He was one of seven American Israelis still held in Gaza, four of whom are now said to be dead. Hamas released a video of one, Edan Alexander, over the weekend, indicating he was still alive.

In late summer, Israel said Hamas killed Hersh Goldberg-Polin, another prominent Israeli American hostage, along with five other captives, whose bodies the Israeli military recovered.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 hostage. Some 100 captives are still held inside Gaza, around two-thirds believed to be alive.

Iraqi militias supported by Iran deployed in Syria on Monday to back the government’s counteroffensive against a surprise advance by insurgents who seized the largest city of Aleppo, a militia official and a war monitor said.

Insurgents led by jihadi group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham launched a two-pronged attack on Aleppo last week and the countryside around Idlib before moving toward neighboring Hama province. Government troops built a fortified defensive line in northern Hama in an attempt to stall the insurgents’ momentum while jets on Sunday pounded rebel-held lines.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus Sunday and announced Tehran’s full support for his government. He later arrived for talks in Ankara, Turkey, one of the rebels' main backers.

Iran has been of Assad’s principal political and military supporters and deployed military advisers and forces after 2011 protests against Assad’s rule turned into an all-out war.

Tehran-backed Iraqi militias already in Syria mobilized and additional forces crossed the border to support them, said the Iraqi militia official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

According to Britain-based opposition war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, some 200 Iraqi militiamen on pickups crossed into Syria overnight through the strategic Bou Kamal. They were expected to deploy in Aleppo to support the Syrian army’s pushback against the insurgents, the monitor said.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — U.S. Navy destroyers shot down seven missiles and drones fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels at the warships and three American merchant vessels they were escorting through the Gulf of Aden. No damage or injuries were reported.

U.S. Central Command said late Sunday that the destroyers USS Stockdale and USS O’Kane shot down and destroyed three anti-ship ballistic missiles, three drones and one anti-ship cruise missile. The merchant ships were not identified.

The Houthis claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement and said they had targeted the U.S. destroyers and “three supply ships belonging to the American army in the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden.”

Houthi attacks for months have targeted shipping through a waterway where $1 trillion in goods pass annually over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and Israel’s ground offensive in Lebanon. A ceasefire was announced in Lebanon last week.

The USS Stockdale was involved in a similar attack on Nov. 12.

Read more of the AP's coverage of the Middle East wars: https://apnews.com/hub/mideast-wars

A Palestinian boy carries a tray of baked goods from a clay oven amid dire food shortages in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Dec. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

A Palestinian woman bakes bread in a clay oven amid dire food shortages in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Dec. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

A view of Lebanese village through a window of a damaged house that was hit by a rocket fired from Lebanon, in the Kibbutz Manara, located in the upper Galilee, northern Israel, Monday Dec. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

A house is blocked with protective sandbags in the community of Kibbutz Manara, located along the border with Lebanon, in northern Israel, Monday, Dec. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Israeli soldiers patrol the perimeter of the agricultural settlement of Avivim, next to the Lebanese border, in upper Galilee, Israel, Monday Dec. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Palestinian children play on the rubble of destroyed buildings at a neighbourhood in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Sunday, Dec. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Israeli soldiers look at a destroyed part of Gaza City from their position at the Israel-Gaza border, as seen from southern Israel, Sunday Dec. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)

Young Palestinians walk amongst rubble of destroyed buildings at a neighbourhood in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Sunday, Dec. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinian walk past destroyed building at a neighbourhood in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Sunday, Dec. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

A Palestinian boy walks past destroyed building at a neighbourhood in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Sunday, Dec. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

This undated photo provided by the Hostages Families Forum Headquarters shows Omer Neutra. (Hostages Families Forum Headquarters via AP)