After rallying in North Carolina on Saturday, Vice President Kamala Harris diverted Air Force Two from an expected landing in Michigan to New York City to make a last-minute appearance in the cold open of the final episode of Saturday Night Live before Election Day.
After James Austin Johnson’s Donald Trump spent a few minutes “running on fumes” and fellating the microphone in his orange garbage truck vest, Maya Rudolph’s Harris shared her disgusted reactions.
But the show saved the main event for the final moments of the sketch, when the real Kamala Harris showed up in the dressing room mirror to give her fictional self a pep talk. And she has never looked happier.
“It is nice to see you, Kamala,” Harris told her SNL doppelgänger. “I’m just here to remind you: You got this, because you can do something your opponent cannot do. You can open doors.”
In response to the joke, which referenced Trump’s recent campaign stunt where he struggled to open a garbage truck door, Rudolph did an impression of Harris’ laugh.
Harris asked, “I don’t really laugh like that, do I?” And Rudolph answered, “A little bit.”
From there, the two went back and forth telling each other Kamala-based puns: “The American people want to stop the chaos and end the dramala,” Harris said, later adding, “Like Legally Blonde-ala.”
Rudolph agreed, adding, “Get back in our pajamalas, and watch a rom-comala.”
The sketch soon left the mirror format, with Rudolph and Harris standing side by side.
“I’m gonna vote for us,” Rudolph said.
“Great,” Harris said. “Any chance you’re registered in Pennsylvania?”
The cameo called to mind Hillary Clinton’s appearance as “Val the bartender” alongside her impressionist, Kate McKinnon, in October of 2015—more than a year before she lost the 2016 election to Trump.
But the last presidential candidate to appear on the show so close to a general election was John McCain, who popped up with Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin on the Saturday before he lost to Barack Obama in 2008.
In that sketch, McCain all but admitted he knew he was going down as Fey turned to the camera and started hawking “Palin 2012″ T-shirts.
Harris’ joyful appearance across the mirror from Rudolph struck a very different tone as the two women laughed together in the midst of what seems to be a Trump campaign meltdown, following his hate-filled Madison Square Garden rally just a few city blocks away less than one week ago.
