Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but Saturday Night Live might have taken that too far in the "DNC Town Hall" skit on its 45th season opener.
With Maya Rudolph playing Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, she joked:
"I'm America's cool aunt. I'm a fun aunt. I call that a funt. The kind of aunt that will give you weed and then arrest you for having weed."
Cue to 4:10 in the clip above.
Rudolph was referring to Rep. Tulsi Gabbard's charge during the Democratic candidates' debate on July 31 that Harris "put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana.”
During Harris' six years as California's Attorney General, 1,876 people went to jail for felony marijuana offenses. However, those numbers declined significantly from 817 in 2011 to 137 in 2016.
Harris admitted to using marijuana during an interview on The Breakfast Show in February. "I did inhale," she said, laughing. "It was a long time ago." She then added about cannabis:
"I think it gives a lot of people joy and we need more joy in the world.”
When the interviewer suggested that she opposed legalizing marijjuana when she was in office in California, Harris replied, “That’s not true. Half my family’s from Jamaica. Are you kidding me?”
Harris' father is Jamaican.
In 2014, Harris called the legalization initiative Prop 19 "flawed public policy." it was defeated. Two years later when Prop 64 was on the ballot, she didn't take a position on it. This time the initiative won.
Since becoming a member of Congress in 2017, Harris has been on the right side of the marijuana issue, signing on to the Marijuana Justice Act and sponsoring her own Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act.
So it's fair to to say the SNL skit was a cheap shot directed at Harris.
