Trump election ad airs during NBC's NASCAR, NFL coverage amid Harris 'SNL' uproar

An election ad for former President Donald Trump aired on NBC toward the end of the broadcast of NASCAR’s Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway and the NFL's coverage of the Minnesota Vikings-Indianapolis Colts game on Sunday night.

The ad started with "A special message from Donald J. Trump."

Trump was seen with his "Make America Great Again" hat as he told viewers that electing Vice President Kamala Harris would bring along another "depression." He also told viewers to go out and vote with only a handful of hours left before Election Day comes and goes.

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"We're losing everything, including viability," Trump said in the ad. "We're going to end up in a depression based on what's been happening. We've never seen anything like it, at least in the last 40 years."

The appearance of the Republican presidential candidate appeared to be connected to Harris’ surprise appearance on "Saturday Night Live," according to multiple reports. 

Fox News Digital reached out to NBC for comment. 

The uproar over her appearance and whether Trump would get free time on some NBC broadcast was the talk of Sunday.

NBC News filed an Equal Time notice with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) late Sunday following the backlash, disclosing Harris "SNL" appearance after the network was accused of violating the longstanding rule.

The notice came after commissioner Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the FCC, lambasted NBC's decision to host Harris in the final episode of SNL ahead of Election Day, while not offering equal time to former President Trump or other candidates in the presidential cycle. 

"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 told Fox News Digital in a Zoom interview Sunday morning.

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The NBC filing later Sunday confirms that the network "views the Harris SNL appearance as a free use of their facilities and airwaves within the meaning of the federal Equal Time rule," Carr told Fox News Digital later Sunday, highlighting the limited timeframe Trump and others have in this case to take the network up on its offer.

Harris appeared on the sketch-comedy shot with 1 minute and 30 seconds. It’s unclear if Trump would make appear in another spot across the network’s broadcasts up until Election Day.

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.

Fox News’ Yael Halon contributed to this report.

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