The leftist outlet NBC News has been accused of violating the Federal Communications Commission's Equal Time Rule, Fox News reports. 

The accusation comes from FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr.

For those unfamiliar with the equal time rule, it essentially requires media outlets, including NBC News, to provide equal time to rival political candidates, such as Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

Carr alleges that NBC broke this rule by recently giving more time to Harris than it has for Trump.

Here is what happened:

The past weekend, just days before the 2024 presidential election, NBC decided to allow Harris to appear on its Saturday Night Live program.

If you saw the broadcast, then you know that it was a pretty blatant attempt by NBC to rally support behind Harris's 2024 presidential election campaign. If you saw the broadcast, then you also probably know that it was not exactly a success.

This, however, is all beside the point. The point is that NBC gave all of that time to Harris without even offering a similar amount of Trump to Harris.

Fox explains:

The Federal Communications Commission’s equal-time rule was established in 1934 and requires radio and television broadcast stations to provide the same amount of time for competing political candidates. There are exceptions to the rule such as newscasts, documentaries and political debates.

In this case, it is clear that the exceptions do not apply.

Commissioner Carr weighs in

In the view of FCC Commissioner Carr, Harris's NBC appearance was a clear violation of the equal time rule.

Carr said:

This has all the appearances of, at least some leadership at NBC, at SNL, making clear that they wanted to weigh-in in favor of one candidate before the election. That's exactly why, for decades, we've had an equal time rule on the book, is to prevent that. Because remember, broadcasters are placed in a special position of trust. They're not just like any other person with a soapbox on the corner. They have a license from the federal government that obligates them to operate in the public interest.

Carr went on to argue that NBC "structured this in a way that's plainly designed to evade the FCC's rules."

He said:

We're talking 50 hours before Election Day starts, without any notice to other candidates, as far as I can tell. And after previously coming out and saying they weren't going to do this precisely because they did not believe that they could do this consistent with election laws and the FCC's equal time rule.

The question now is whether or not NBC will be penalized. At the moment, the answer is unclear.